Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings
by William Easley
Summary: Dipper knows he and Wendy have to pick out the ideal one. Teek is fretting about his and Mabel's long-distance relationship. And that hot spring out in the wilderness is still beckoning . . . Tons o' Wendip, so be warned.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you.

* * *

 **Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 2016)**

* * *

 **1: What Does the Gnome Say?**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Tuesday, July 5: It's almost eleven PM, and an hour ago I got back from the bonfire clearing, where I had a long talk with Jeff and a short one with Shmebulock. Well, all talks with Shmebulock tend to be short ones, I guess, but anyway, I was there for an hour._

" _Look," I told Jeff, "you guys have to stop being my sister's connection."_

 _He didn't follow that, so I explained: "Twice now you've given her Gnome, I don't know, potions or something, and it's worked out badly both times. Remember when you gave her the super-strength stuff? She might have killed herself! She couldn't stop testing her strength, and she exhausted herself."_

" _Those mushrooms were good," Jeff said in a reminiscent tone of voice._

" _Shmebulock!" Shmebulock said, nodding eagerly._

" _Well, what works for Gnomes doesn't work the same way for humans. This last time, she turned invisible and when she turned visible again, she was naked in public. And she had to vomit rainbows for a really long time!"_

" _That wasn't really our fault," Jeff pointed out. "She was supposed to sprinkle a little of the powder in her shoes, not dip her finger in it and taste it! Gnomes wouldn't do that. We have better sense . . . es of what we shouldn't do," he said. His expression was like Soos's when he's just corrected himself and says, "Saved it!"_

" _My sister will taste anything," I told him. "What if the rainbow thing didn't work? She could have been stuck invisible for a really long time!"_

" _Shmebulock," Shmebulock muttered._

 _Jeff glanced at him. "We don't know that it would make her kids invisible," he said. "That's just speculation."_

" _Guys," I said, "look, we get along now. Let's keep it that way. Will you promise me that if Mabel ever asks for anything, uh, Gnomish again, you'll come to me and tell me before you decide to give it to her? It's for your own good."_

" _Her own good, you mean," Jeff said._

" _I know what I said," I told him._

 _He and Shmebulock conferred and agreed that notifying me without giving anything to Mabel would be a good idea and said they would do it. But before the peace conference broke up, Shmebulock said something to Jeff—you can guess what—and Jeff said, "He wants to know if the same thing applies to Teek."_

 _That made me suspicious. "Has Teek asked you guys for anything? Potion of strength? Love potion? Something to make him, uh, grow?"_

" _No, no, nothing like that," said Jeff. "More in the geological line. Like a specimen of a kind of rock. It doesn't have any power that we know of, though."_

" _I guess that would be OK," I said._

 _I mean, what can I do? I am not my sister's boyfriend's keeper. And Teek is level headed, so I don't think he needs to be kept. I do sort of wish I'd asked Jeff exactly what Teek had requested, but it really wasn't my business, so we left it at that._

 _When I got back to the Shack, Mabel was still awake, sitting in the parlor eating chocolate-chip cookies and watching an old romantic movie on TV. I sat down next to her._

" _Tell me the rest of it," I said._

 _So she confessed it was all part of her plan to follow Teek around and see if he was flirting with other girls. I shook my head. "You didn't have to do that! Look, I've been around Teek when you weren't there, and he's shy around girls. I've never seen him be more than polite, even when it's a girl he knows from school. You don't have anything to worry about."_

" _I just wanted to be sure," she said._

 _She didn't much want to talk about it. Today I went easy on her, because she still had an invisibility spell hangover, or that's what she told me, and she missed work because she wasn't feeling up to it. But she had eaten a good dinner and seemed to feel much better, so now I made her go through the whole story. "Weren't you embarrassed?" I asked her._

 _She squirmed. "Yeah, kinda," she admitted. "But Teek was a gentleman. He touched my boob by accident when he couldn't see me, and then he grabbed my butt when we tried the kissing thing—I think it made him dizzy and he had to hold onto SOMETHING—and when I got sick and was heaving, he just forgot to let go. But then he held my hair up when I was barfing, and when I turned visible, all I could think of was somebody over on the beach might have binoculars and see me, so Teek gave me the shirt off his back. Literally! And also the jeans off his butt and the laces out of his shoes."_

" _But he saw you naked!"_

" _Pffbbt! You can't look alluring when you're retching and puking, Brobro. Anyway, you and Wendy gave each other an eyeful out at the lake. Ooh-la-la!"_

" _That's different," I said. "She had to clear her head, and a swim was the way to do it. We just didn't have any swimming things. Anyhow, this isn't about us, it's about you!"_

" _Look, Dip, Teek isn't a bad guy. He's a hero! He saved me from exposure! And when we went to his car, people were leaving the fireworks show, and they saw him in his underwear. Pacifica's already texted me, teasing me about it! He took a bullet for me, Dip! By the way, have a word with him, would you, about underwear? He still wears tighty whities, the way you used to. He'd look a whole lot yummier in boxer briefs, like the ones you wear now."_

" _Guys don't talk underpants to other guys!" I said._

" _Well, that's stupid. I've already ordered a bra that Pacifica swears is the most comfortable and easiest one to get out of in a hurry. C'mon, Dipper. Say a word about fashionable underthings to him. For me? Please?"_

" _Wait a minute," I said. "You've been peeking at me in my underwear?"_

" _You saw me in my bra and panties!" she shot back._

" _Not on purpose!"_

 _Well, I won't go into it. We kind of bickered, but I told her if she wanted to say something about Teek's undershorts, she could do it, but I was out._

" _How about Wendy? Would she do it for me? I don't want to upset Teek. We're just getting re-balanced as it is. Our chakras have started to chakra cha-cha-cha again, if you know what I mean. Wink!"_

" _I do not want to know about this," I said, and gave it up for the evening._

 _Now, lying in bed with my Journal propped up on my knees, I'm wondering about going ring-shopping with Wendy. From little things she's said, I'm not sure that she really wants to make a public show of being engaged yet. I hope she's not having second thoughts._

 _I know I never will._

* * *

You always go online to start your shopping process, or you do if you are Dipper Pines. He spent Wednesday evening on the internet, looking up jewelry shops in and around Portland.

They ranged from national chains (like the one where a guy in the diamond business is a friend of yours) to mom-and-pop shops and to individual crafters, including a good many aging hippie types. Portland is like that—a sort-of big city (not in San Francisco's league, though) with a history of being off-beat. And proud of it.

Anyway, as Dipper scanned the web sites, one caught his eye: Landlord of the Rings, which advertised "We have thousands of engagement rings just waiting to move out!"

It looked weird and quirky, and at first he wrote it off as silly, but then . . . well, Mabel was silly, and he wouldn't write her off. Somehow he kept coming back to it.

Two women in their late thirties or early forties owned it, and they looked like a couple. He wondered if they wrote their own ad copy and sort of hoped they didn't. It offered lots of hype, usually a bad sign. As Stanley Pines's great-nephew, Dipper knew a few things about hype. So come-ons like "Lowest Prices, Highest Quality in the Northwest!" and "Put a ring on it!—for LESS!" and such had relatively little effect on Dipper.

However, the "Mission Statement"—really, how many big stores have one of those?—made him grin. "We will handcraft your ideal ring from your specifications and you do not have to purchase until it is all you dreamed of. We do not discriminate and will sell to any individual and any couple in love, no matter what gender or species. Whom you love is your own business, not ours. Only bring money."

That was so Grunkly it made him chuckle. He spent some time on the web site for Landlord of the Rings. Their jewelry did look good in the photos. Of course we're talking online here, who's to say the proprietors of Landlord of the Rings didn't just download every photo of a good-looking ring they could find and then foist them off as pictures of genuine merchandise?

He made a few notes, turned in, and the next day he got so busy when a horde of tourists invaded the Shack that he forgot about engagement rings. But then the _next_ morning, Thursday July 7, as he and Wendy ran, he asked her if she'd ever heard of the place. "Nope," she said. "That's Portland, though. If not for Gravity Falls, Portland would be the weirdest place west of the Rockies."

"When we do our shopping run, you want to take a look there?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," Wendy said. "Couldn't hurt, right?"

"And you're still willing to wear the ring?"

She slowed and stopped. "About that."

Dipper's heart sank.

She saw his apprehension and gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. "You are such a dork! That's why I love you. No, I mean yeah, I will, but—little proviso, OK?—let me begin wearing it on August 31, OK?

"Our birthday?" Dipper asked, surprised.

"Yep. A one-year engagement. Well, officially. See, my friends won't tease me so much, and my Dad won't be all suspicious, if we're long-distance right after you put the ring on my finger. Is that all right?"

He was so relieved that he hugged her. "It's fine with me," he said. "I was afraid that—never mind."

 _Afraid that I was gonna break up with you? Get out of town, Dipper! This is me! This is you!_

— _I know, I know. What you told me the other day about people's personalities being set by the time they're twelve—I guess I'll always be a worrier and a pessimist. And, let's face it, a dork._

 _Nah, those are things that make you a good guy, too. Hey, when I was twelve, I was taking, like, insane risks. We were camping this one time and I chased a bear off before anybody else was awake. I went over a waterfall once saving Tambry's dog—he'd jumped in and didn't know the current was gonna wash him over, so I grabbed onto him and held him and curled up when we shot over the falls—_

— _Not THE falls?_

 _No, dude! These were ten, twelve feet tall. I'll show 'em to you some time. Anyway, I saved Liquor and got him back to shore. What I mean, I did crazy dangerous things just on impulse. You take care of reining me in, Dip, and I'll take care of getting us in trouble._

— _Deal—but "Liquor?" Seriously?_

As they resumed their run, Wendy explained that "Liquor" was a gag name, because the pup was a licker—anything, anybody. He never drank anything stronger than water, though. He had passed away more than a year before Dipper and Mabel first came to Gravity falls, at the age of thirteen. Tambry had been heartbroken.

But at least now she was happy. Wendy had heard from her: the Tombstones were off on a summer tour, and they were recording another album down in L.A.. "Good for them," Dipper said.

"Yeah," Wendy said wryly, "but, man! My old gang is so scattered out now. I really miss them."

And Dipper began to realize why his Lumberjack Girl had become such a dedicated student and such a hard worker.

It was hard to understand, but his cheerful, laid-back, outgoing girlfriend—

Was a little lonely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 8, 2016)**

* * *

 **2: Everybody Must Get Stones**

Stanford and Stanley had returned early Thursday morning from their trip to Las Vegas, looking fit and rested and happy. Stanley hinted that he'd had his usual good luck in the casinos—"Gotta win some, lose some, to keep the muscle boys from gettin' too interested, know what I mean? But I ain't complainin' about the final score. It was . . . very _grand_! Hah!"

"It's more difficult to prevent the staff from becoming too interested if you fool one of the casino enforcers with a silly card trick," Stanford complained. They and their wives had come up the hill from their new homes for breakfast on Friday. Sheila and Lorena were going to help with the Shack—this and the next two weeks were the busiest of the season normally, and already Soos said that things were looking good for a record year.

Soos said he would help Wendy in the gift shop and happily surrendered the Mr. Mystery chores to Stanley, who got into eye patch and fez and became his familiar old jovial, grinning, joshing, ace-salesman self, wielding his eight-ball-headed cane with panache, just like in the old days.

As they had breakfast, Stanford told them he planned to drive over to the new paranormal-sciences graduate institute that he, with some help from a certain clandestine government Agency, had launched about twenty miles from the Valley. Dipper had already toured the campus, which was not yet too terribly impressive, to be sure. It had once been a rural high school, but contractors had worked for months refurbishing, rewiring, and adding on.

The Institute's main building was a blocky Beaux Arts in style, dating back to 1921, three stories tall (one reason why it had been decommissioned as a high school—too hard for a couple hundred students to escape in the event of a fire), red brick, with arched windows and a stately air.

Its fire safety had been greatly enhanced—wooden floors and fixtures replaced with fireproof ones, two broad new staircases had been added, together with two fire-resistant elevators for those who could not easily negotiate stairs. Each well-insulated elevator had its own self-contained backup power, with double fail-safes, in case main power was lost, and both would, in an extreme emergency, descend past the first floor to a tunnel excavated twenty feet below ground level, absolutely fireproof, and leading to a safe exit a hundred fifty feet from the building.

The renovations reminded Dipper of the bunker, though without quite so many death traps. It's amazing what practically unlimited money can accomplish.

Anyway, the basic external look of the building had not been much altered, but now the ground floor consisted of offices and meeting rooms for the teachers, while the two above held lecture rooms and laboratories. Just across the parking lot on the right side of the classroom structure, the old school gym had been gutted and rebuilt as a two-story library/media center. Two newly built buildings, two-storied dormitories, long and done in matching brick, flanked the driveway. They were ready for occupation, though the first term would not begin until the day after Labor Day.

Behind the main classroom building, a dining hall and student center building had been completed but not yet furnished, and the foundations had been laid for an assembly hall and theater. Dipper had walked through the whole complex, admiring it—gleaming and state of the art inside, though from the outside it looked so classic, not to say outdated. "Perhaps," Ford had said, "one day you'll come here, Mason. Once you have your undergraduate degree, I mean."

"We'll see," Dipper had replied. He was never sure if he could measure up to new challenges.

Well, anyway, on that Friday morning, Stanford said he was heading over until about noon, and he invited Dipper to ride along, since the Shack had plenty of help. Stanley said "Go, go, but I'll tell Soos to cut your pay by ten bucks!"

Soos also told Dipper to go and held up his hand to hide his mouth as he whispered loudly, "Ix-nay on the ay-pay ut-cay, Ipper-day." Stan, who heard every word and was pretty fluent in Pig Latin, rolled his eyes.

Stanford even let Dipper drive his beloved Lincoln. Dipper handled the car with his customary caution, earning praise from his great-uncle. And since automobiles offer a great deal of privacy, after a little internal debate with himself, Dipper opened up to Stanford on the way over: "Grunkle Ford, how did you pick out Lorena's engagement ring?"

Ford chuckled. "It was quite a simple process, Mason! I wanted to present her with a unique ring, and so I used a stone cut from a block of Rhidicollite matrix and simply had it mounted in a ring setting."

"Wha-at?" Dipper asked. "Rhidi—what was that?"

His great-uncle laughed. "Rhidicollite. No wonder you haven't heard of it. It's a unique and possibly paranormal form of crystallized carbon, like diamond, but it is extremely dense and presents sixteen facets, not eight, in its normal state. It's nearly twice as hard as diamond, and it's extremely brilliant when cut as a gem."

"Whoa," Dipper said.

Stanford, who sometimes could be so absent-minded and self-absorbed that he missed things, seemed extra sharp that morning. He gave Dipper a sideways glance. "Are you by any chance thinking of purchasing a certain type of symbolic ring for Miss Corduroy?"

"W-well—yeah, we've talked about it. I'd like to get her something spectacular, but—wow, I just didn't know how much engagement rings cost! I've got a savings account with four thousand dollars in it just for that. I found a ring online that I think she might like—but the stone alone costs more than I have in savings."

"How large is the diamond?" Ford asked.

"Um, a carat. She says she doesn't want a flashy one, but I want her to have—"

"Mm-hmm. Well, my boy, I must tell you that the high cost of diamonds is not related to their rarity—diamonds are the most common gemstones, in fact—or their size. At least, not their size alone. Weight, clarity, color, and the complexity of the cut all contribute to the price. But sadly for young couples, most of the reason for the great expense is simple marketing. Jewelry companies buy in bulk, relatively cheaply, and conspire to keep retail prices high."

"Oh. Grunkle Stan's territory," Dipper said as he left the Valley, passing Admiral Skipper's house with its lawn full of military memorabilia, and turned onto the highway. They rolled over a bridge above a broad white-water stream and then the road became curvy as it passed the foot of the mountains. The route took them past a few homes and farms, but most of the scenery consisted of forest and mountain slopes. "So the middle men make the most money?" Dipper asked.

Stanford nodded. "That's right. The expense is mostly in the mark-up." Ford looked out the window at the passing scene for a minute or so. "Mason, if you don't mind telling me, when are you and Miss Corduroy thinking of being married?"

"When? Not until I'm eighteen," Dipper said. "So, a little more than a year at least. I know Dad will consent to it, and I'm hoping Mom will. But when I'm eighteen and Wendy's twenty, well, even if Mom has objections, nobody could really stop us."

"If you wish," Ford said, "Stanley and I will intervene to help secure your mother's approval. Frankly, I can't think of a better match for you than Wendy. And—I hesitate to say this, because it looks as though I'm showing off—if you truly want to give Wendy a unique ring, there's enough Rhidicollite matrix left to cut her a very nice stone, probably between three-quarters and a full carat. In fact, there's enough for at least three or four, all about that size, perhaps more.."

"Um," Dipper said. "How much would—"

"Nothing!" Ford said at once. He grinned. "I could scarcely charge my own great-nephew for something I salvaged from a crashed UFO at no cost to myself! But you can have a jeweler set the stone in a nice ring, and that will probably cost a thousand or a bit more, depending on how elaborate you want the setting to be."

Dipper swallowed. "I—I don't know what to say, Grunkle Ford."

"It's my pleasure. Now, Fiddleford has the matrix in his keeping," Stanford said. He took out his phone. "I'll call him and ask him to drive out with it and meet us at the Institute."

They arrived, Dipper parked in the lot between the media center and the main building, taking the space marked PRESIDENT, and they went to Stanford's office, not enormous but big enough to be impressive, a handsome, manly sort of room with lots of leather, glass-fronted bookcases, and functional but not fancy lamps and furnishings (Lorena had decorated it)—and Dipper noticed that already Ford's big cherrywood desk had become a clutter of papers and odds and ends.

Ford settled into his tall desk chair to make a couple of phone calls and then checked his schedule on a desktop computer. "Let me see . . . I really need to hire a secretary . . . oh, yes, I'm interviewing Dr. Claussen in an hour. He's applied for a position as Professor of Paraphysics, and he looks to be the best candidate, at least on paper. When Fiddleford shows up—"

The door opened, and Fiddleford himself entered, dressed in a neat gray tweed suit and smiling. "We'll all have chicken and dumplin's when he comes! Howdy, Dipper. I brought it, Stanford. It's in this here case."

He was carrying a briefcase—oxblood in color, slim in design—and Stanford said, "Well, since we have a little time, let's go up to the paranormal materials lab, and you can take a look, Mason."

In the lab, Fiddleford opened the briefcase and took out a box about ten inches by six inches by three. Inside, resting on velvet, as the small slab of rock holding the gems. The matrix was a heavy pale-olive-colored stone, oblong, roughly the size of a paperback book, its texture fine and so smooth it looked almost glassy. The crystals of Rhidicollite lay embedded in it like chocolate chips in a cookie, except a good deal harder.

Fiddleford set the stone under a magnifying glass on a gooseneck and shone a bright white light on it. He touched the embedded crystals with a silver instrument that looked like something a dentist might use to chip tartar off teeth. "Some of these here doohickeys are too little, really, for anything much good. But there's six of a right good size, half a carat and up. Looky here, these two close to this edge are real different from the others. See? I'd say that if these was cut, they'd yield out at about .9 carat apiece, nice size for a lady's ring, not too boasty but very pretty. Now, look real close. See how they got this nice tinge of color?"

Fiddleford took hold of the matrix stone and turned it gently, spears of light flashing from the two embedded gems he had pointed out, which were shaped like fat teardrops.

"They're pink," Dipper said. The color really was striking.

Fiddleford agreed: "Yep. Real beauties, at least in my opinion. Now, pink diamonds, they're right hard to come by! A good stone this size, cut right, would run you thirty thousand dollars, I reckon."

Dipper felt as if he wanted to sit down on the floor and catch his breath. "Thirty—th-thirty—th—thousand—?"

Fiddleford didn't seem to notice. "Oh, yeah. Only this here mineral ain't rightly diamond, o' course. If they was a market for this stuff, shoot, I expect one o' these might run maybe fifty million."

"Eep," Dipper squeaked.

"Eep indeed," Ford confirmed. "However, there _is_ no market, so let's just say these would be . . . priceless. But understand, Mason, we haven't yet finished exploring the UFO. I estimate at least seventy percent of the interior space has not yet been properly examined."

"Yeah, them security robomajigs kinda discouragified us from pushin' on, if I recall correctly," Fiddleford put in.

Ford shrugged. "Since then I've learned to deal with the security bots. There may yet be a ton of this matrix stored somewhere in a hold contained in the depths of the machine. This piece lay all by itself in a locker. I think it might have just been a specimen one of the crew collected on some exotic planet. Fiddleford believes it's basically what you would call a fuel source. The Rhidicollite might have somehow been used in the faster-than-light drive, in which case there will be more of it somewhere aboard."

"Just a little old theory o' mine," Fiddleford explained. "'Cause these beauties is so dense that, with enough of 'em in the correct configurmaration and the right kind of energy, you jest might be able to distort time and space. Or maybe not, but anyways, they're mighty magnificent as jewels."

Ford grinned at Dipper. "Anyway, whatever their original purpose might have been, you're welcome to one or both of these stones. The catch is that only we can cut it for you—there's no earthly substance that can shape Rhidicollite. Only a high-powered super laser."

"Luckily, we already got us one of them, and I can whomp out a good stone for ya," Fiddleford said. "I got it fixed so the computer sets up the shape and the facets, and the laser does all the rest, automatic-like. Take about a day."

Dipper bit his lip. "Uh—Grunkle Ford? Could I really have _both_ of these?"

"If you wish," Ford said.

"Two is jest as easy as one t'cut," Fiddleford put in. "Don't make no nevermind to me."

"Look, I—I'm not being greedy, but these are so special—I think if one is for me, Mabel ought to have one of them too. Maybe, I don't know, in a necklace or something? And later, if she wants to have it put in a ring, that could be done, right?"

"Nothin' to it," Fiddleford said. "Ford, that's a right fine idea. You know, Mabel and Dipper here was the ones what snapped me back out of being as screwy in the head bone as a jerboa that jumped in a patch o' loco weed. Me and my missus both owe them big."

"Well," Ford said with a smile, "you and I discovered the matrix together. It's as much yours as it is mine, and of course Mabel is family, too. In short, I'm amenable." He checked his watch. "I'm going down to my office. Dr. Claussen should be here soon, and I want to meet him."

After Ford left, Dipper carefully studied the two embedded stones. They lay almost side by side in the olive-green matrix, less than an eighth of an inch apart, and they were—no other word for it—twins. They were of exactly the same size, the exactly the same pretty shade of pink, and almost exactly the same shape, somewhat swollen teardrops, as if they had crystallized while liquid and had become frozen solid in stone.

Dipper picked up a yellow legal pad from Fiddleford's desk and used a pen to draw a quick sketch. "Do you think you could cut them so they'd shape up sort of like this?" he asked, handing the old man his sketch.

Fiddleford glanced at the drawing. "Easy and peasy," he said. "Nothin' to it, and that would sure make 'em as pretty as a bluetick hound puppy in a top hat and tails. Let me get this here now program set up on the lasermograver and I'll show you jest what they would look like. If you decide to make changes, this is the time. Can't rightly do it once I frees them up from the matrix and starts the cut."

Though he still slipped to hillbilly state when he spoke casually, Fiddleford was no slouch at a keyboard. He rattled the keys faster than Dipper could manage—and Dipper was a fast typist himself, having now written the manuscripts of three YA novels on a computer—and in about an hour, after scanning in the visible parts of the two crystals and imposing the design, Fiddleford said, "Now look-a-here. This is how they'd turn out. Some bit of loss, but even at that, they'd weigh out at about .86 of a carat apiece, a right good size fer a ring."

Ford came in again. "Dr. Claussen is on board!" he announced, clapping his hands together as though quite pleased. "We now have a full complement of professors for our hundred and twenty-four students. By the way, Fiddleford, congratulations."

"Fer what?" Fiddleford asked as he pressed a key and began to print out plans for and images of the gemstones.

"For being named Dean of the Faculty," Ford said patiently. "I just received the registered letter I've been expecting. The Agency confirmed my request for the appointment and you'll have the job title, the office, and the salary that we discussed, as well as generous travel and research funds. All you have to do is sign the contract, and we can do that down in my office as soon as you finish here." He sighed. "We're going to need a Payroll Officer and, I suppose, a faculty secretary too. We'll worry about hiring them later, though. Right now I just want to get you signed up."

"That's right nice," Fiddleford said mildly. "Hey, I'm showin' Dipper what the two gems are gonna look like." He took the printout. "This here's just a conceptual renderin', now. The real things are gonna be right flashy and brilliant-like. This here shows you the actual size, and these here are blow-ups at ten times magnification. They're gonna be nearly prezactly identical, as you can see."

Dipper looked at the pictures. He could visualize that shape on a pretty ring just made to fit Wendy's finger. He took a deep breath. "Oh, this is—this is perfect. Guys—I can't tell you what this will mean to Wendy, Mabel and me! This is—gosh. I just—I can't thank you enough."

"Don't even try," Ford said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's all in the family—you, Mabel, and Wendy."

Dipper shivered. Oh, yeah. When the time came—Wendy would be one of the family.

Wendy Corduroy Pines. Mrs. Pines. Dipper and Wendy Pines.

His throat felt so tight—with joy, not with fear or sadness, for a change—that he couldn't for the moment trust himself to speak.


	3. Chapter 3

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 8, 2016)**

* * *

 **3: Frantic Friday**

Though Ford drove them back to the Falls and they got to the Shack just at noon—they discovered no parking was to be had. People had double-parked in the lot, where three buses also stood. Drivers had pulled off and parked on both sides of the drive as well.

With difficulty and Dipper's help, Ford managed to turn the Lincoln around. Then he crept it along down the drive, through the narrow passage. "You go in," Ford told Dipper. "I'll drive down to my house and then come and join you. I'll have to walk it. I had no idea the crowd would be such a problem!"

"It's OK," Dipper said., getting out of the Lincoln at the foot of the driveway. "See you when you get up here!" He walked up the drive, having to step aside for another incoming car, a compact. The driver solved the parking problem by jouncing over the grass and stopping on the lawn.

Dipper went in the family entrance and stepped into chaos. It was like wading into a sea of football fans, everybody talking at once, and to add to the din, Stan's strong voice boomed from the museum: ". . . nobody knows how the mysterious mutation called the Turtle-corn emerged! Part turtle! Part horse! Part something with one horn, whatever that would be. A narwhal! The Turtle-corn!"

Sheila gave Dipper a grateful look as he relieved her at one of the two registers. Mabel, at the other, puffed out her cheeks to show how pooped she was, and immediately Dipper started to ring up merch.

The snack bar, where Teek, Abuelita, and Lorena fought to maintain order, overflowed. Some people took their food out to the lawn, to the picnic tables that Soos had not yet gotten around to folding and storing. Dipper saw Soos hurrying to the snack bar with a huge blue-and-white cooler in his arms—more hamburger patties and hot dogs, Dipper supposed—but he had no time to chat to Soos or anyone.

Wendy, her hair a little frizzy, walked the beat in the gift shop, preventing kids from playing catch with geodes or skulls, stopping shoplifting in its tracks, and answering questions—how could she even hear, with all that gabble going on?—and she flashed Dipper a weary smile.

The gift shop started to feel stuffy and humid, and Wendy came by opening windows. She almost had to yell to Dipper: "AC's fighting a losing battle, man!"

But early July was far from the hottest time of year in Gravity Falls, and a slight cool breeze from the windows helped things a little. At one point, Mabel ducked down behind the counter and pulled off her sweater, hopping back on her stool wearing a pink short-sleeved top. That told Dipper it had to be hot—Mabel was so acclimated to sweaters that, unless she were swimming, one hardly ever saw her in other attire.

For a horn-honking time the buses couldn't even leave because of the cars on both sides of the driveway. But slots opened up as cars departed, and with the aid of the bullhorn, Soos asked those drivers who were on the verge of the driveway to please move their cars. Finally, the buses pulled out . . . and two more took their places. But the tide turned by two in the afternoon, and by five they were down to just an ordinary day.

Dipper hadn't taken time for lunch, nor had Wendy. They finally were able to go grab a bite at five-ten, only fifty minutes before closing time. Teek had closed the snack bar at three-thirty, later than the posted time, so they went to the kitchen instead and made a quick couple of sandwiches and then went out to the family porch to eat them.

"Man!" Wendy said, settling down on the orange sofa. "That was like being in a madhouse! And tomorrow will be just as bad. But—you wanna go for a little hike at six tomorrow afternoon, Dip?"

"Out to Ghost Falls?" he asked.

"She grinned. Uh-huh."

"And, uh, out to the hot spring?"

"Oh," Wendy said, all innocence, "that's right, there _is_ a hot spring there, isn't there? I had forgotten all about it."

"Uh-huh," Dipper mimicked.

She shoved him, giggling. "Get out of town, man. Yeah, the hot spring! You man enough for it?"

Putting on his best John Wayne impression, which was still pretty bad, Dipper said, "Well, little lady, I'll give it a try."

"Mm," Wendy said around a mouthful of sandwich. She swallowed and sipped from a Pitt's. "It is amazing how good baloney tastes when you're starving."

Dipper had already wolfed his own sandwich. "Want me to go make you another one?"

Wendy finished hers off. "No, I gotta go home and make dinner for Dad and my brothers, and I'll eat with them. But thanks. That's sweet of you."

Dipper drank about half of his cola and asked, "Why don't you guys just order pizza tonight?"

"Wish we could, but Dad's watching his cholesterol. Just one pizza a week, and we had one a couple days ago. You know what, though? I think I'll swing by the seafood store and buy some salmon. It's healthy, Dad can grill it, and I'll just have to throw together a salad and think up a side."

"Sounds like a plan," Dipper said. Then a little too casually, he asked, "So—we're planning to camp out tomorrow night and then just sort of relax on Sunday?"

"I want to do absolutely nothing but laze around in the hot spring for a couple of hours," Wendy said. "Boil some of the kinks out . . . of my muscles, dude! Don't give me that funny look!"

Dipper shrugged and grinned. He took another sip and asked, "And then Monday, drive over to Portland to poke around in jewelry stores?"

Wendy turned unusually shy, her voice soft: "Well, yeah, OK. If you still want to. We don't have to."

"What if . . . we just sort of window-shop?" Dipper asked. "Maybe we could, I don't know, find some rings that you like and then later—if you trust me—"

She kissed his cheek, and for a change her breath smelled like bologna, not peppermint. It was nice, anyway. "Now, let me see," she said. "Why should I trust the guy who held onto me and wouldn't let go while I was, like, drowning in the Pacific and too numb with cold to hang on to him? The one who punched out the Love God for zapping me with a crazy ray? The guy who made a vow never to pressure me into doing anything I don't want to do—and keeps his word? Yeah, Dip, I think maybe I might just take a chance this one time."

"Thanks," he said. "But I wanted to say, if we can narrow it down to maybe half a dozen that you really like, then maybe later I can pick one of those and sort of surprise you, at least in a small way."

"I don't want you going way overboard," Wendy said. "You still need your college money."

"How's this? I promise not to spend more than half of what I saved up just for this occasion. The other half—I'll save for our honeymoon."

"I'll agree," she said. "But honest, Dipper, I don't want a great big showy ring. You and I will know what it means. That's all that's important, not impressing other people."

"Today I talked to Grunkle Ford about diamonds, sort of," Dipper said. "I think whatever we wind up with, it'll be less than one carat. Not teeny, but not all show-bizzy huge, either. Something I can afford."

"OK," Wendy said. "We'll try it your way. Make a list of possibles and then you decide which. We won't let the sales people push us into buying before we're ready, either."

They got up, tossed the empty soda cans into the recycling bin, and with a sigh went back to work—just for thirty minutes. When six o'clock came and Stan shooed the last nine tourists out, they gave each other a little peck of a kiss and Wendy changed into her street clothes and drove the Green Machine down the drive, turning to head for the fish market.

But the Ramirezes, who were not under doctor's orders about cholesterol, ordered pizza, to Mabel's delight.

* * *

After dinner (almost zero clean-up, an advantage of a pizza night), Mabel sat out on the Museum porch with Dipper. He was practicing his guitar, hooked into a little battery-powered amp and turned low. "You're getting pretty good," Mabel said.

He shrugged. "I'm just OK. I'll never be more than just OK, I know that, but it relaxes me. You worn out?"

She waggled her fingers. "Ugh! I got calluses on my calluses from the register keys. We took in more money today than Grunkle Stan used to in a week! Oh, you missed it—while you and Grunkle Ford were out having fun, a team dropped in from _Oregon Trails_ —"

"What's that?" Dipper asked.

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Dah-duh! It's the big Oregon tourist magazine, available online and in better stores anywhere! You've seen it, Dipper! It's in the supermarkets, right alongside of that magazine that tells the wacky adventures of Batboy!"

"His adventures aren't so wacky," Dipper said.

"ANYhow," Mabel said in an exaggerated way, "the two girls and the guy did a photo shoot and interviewed Grunkle Stan and Soos and took a bunch of photos of Wendy in provocative poses, and they said the Shack is in the running to be the number one tourist trap in the state!"

"That's . . . yayy," Dipper said mildly. He didn't know why the news wasn't thrilling. He was happy that Soos was having all this success, but—well—

He thought back to that summer when Mabel believed he was going to ditch her to take an apprenticeship with Ford. What had he told her? "Things change."

She had longed for everything to stay the same as it had been that summer. But—yeah. Things change.

That was still true. And change _could_ be good. But—it still hurt a little bit, somehow. The Shack was no longer the dump it had been—and that was good, right? And Stan didn't have to rely on the Shack for his income. Really good. And Stanford not only had returned and discovered he was well-off from patent income, but now had this great job as president of a research institution. Good, man, yeah. All good.

But still it wasn't the same.

As night came on, Teek returned to the Shack, having showered and changed his clothes (though Mabel thought the way he normally smelled, like fast food, was charming). "Hi," he said to them. "Practicing, Dipper?"

Dipper played a mournful C-sharp minor chord, with some bass notes, and then a G7 major in F, a long stretch for his fingers, and then flubbed an E7 blues chord. "That one's real hard to get," he said. "Still working on it. Some of these fancy chords are murder on the hands."

"Play us something," Mabel said, she hopped up, grabbed Teek's hand, and said, "We wanna dance! Play us a slow dance!"

"Let me see. OK, here you go," Dipper said. He started one of his own compositions, "Up Over the Moon," not a hard one to play. It was a lazy 120 beat-per-minute tempo, a flowing melody, a clear beat, an easy A-C-G-D chord progression with E- and F-minor varying the middle section.

"Perfect!" Mabel said. She and Teek broke into a casual stroll-around dance, then did some steps back to back, then he swung her around, and they danced on the lawn in the fading light of day. Teek had developed a little style with his dancing, and he and Mabel made a good pair. He even dipped her once, making her giggle, "Oh, my!"

Dipper gave them a little fanfare to wind up on, and they came back to the porch holding hands. "What was that?" Teek asked.

"Nothing, really. Just a tune I put together," Dipper said. "I don't have lyrics for it yet. It's called 'Up Over the Moon,' and I want to do something a little bit different with the middle part so it's not as repetitive as it is now."

"It's a good dance number" Mabel said. "My talented Brobro!"

They sat and talked for a while, Dipper noodling around with chords, quite softly. Bugs came and swirled around the parking-lot lights. Way off in the distance, something howled, _Yip, yip, aaoooowooooo!_

"Poor doggie!" Mabel said.

"Coyote," Dipper corrected. "Probably a few out hunting."

"I haven't heard a coyote up here in ages!" Mabel asked. "That's adorable!"

"To small pets," Dipper said. "Usually, though, you hardly ever see them. They're mostly nocturnal. And they're not really dangerous to people. Unless you see one leafing through an Acme catalogue, or flying in a blimp overhead and leaning out the window clutching an anvil."

"Huh?" Mabel asked. "How could—oh, it's a joke! I get it! 'Meep-meep!' Teek, it's a joke, 'cause—"

"I get the joke," Teek said. "But real coyotes don't do that. Of course, this is Gravity Falls!"

"Yeah, and these are normal coyotes," Dipper said. He began to strum "Blue Shadows on the Trail," but the distant coyotes failed to come in on their marks. "I don't think there are very many of them in the Valley. They're really scarce here."

"Not enough food?" Teek guessed.

"I think . . . there's something in the woods that likes to eat them," Dipper said.

"Oh, yuck!" Mabel said. She got up. "I'm gonna go put on my sweater again. It gets cool quick at night."

As soon as she'd gone inside, Teek said, "Uh, Dipper? I've kind of got an idea about me and Mabel. I mean, how to, you know, make sure things are all right between us. Can I ask your opinion?"

Dipper let the tune fade away. "Sure."

Breathlessly, in two rushed sentences, Teek explained what he had in mind. "So—would that be OK?"

"I think it would be great," Dipper said. "And I like your idea. Keep it reasonable, though."

"Yeah, I've thought of that," Teek said. "I think I've got it covered. I'll run it past you before committing, though."

"Fine," Dipper said. "Better ask Wendy, too." He played a few chords of the song he'd written for her, "I Will Always Believe in Fairy Tales," and, smiling, he said, "She'd know about stuff like that."

"I can come over to talk to her on Monday," Teek said.

"Um, OK, but in the late afternoon. Wendy and I are going on a little trip over to Portland that morning."

Mabel returned in a new gold-colored sweater just then, so they cut their conversation short. For another hour, Dipper played lazy chords and sometimes little songs—Mabel and Teek harmonized on a couple—and then when full dark had finally fallen, he stood up, picked up his small amp, and said, "Well, gonna be a busy day tomorrow. I'm turning in."

Twenty minutes later, Mabel opened the door of the attic bedroom without knocking, as usual. Dipper lay in bed, writing in his latest Journal. "Hey, Dip?" Mabel said, taking a seat on the foot of his bed.

He finished a sentence and set the journal aside. "Yeah?"

Mabel was twirling a strand of her hair around a finger. "I just wanted to say goodnight. And, um, thanks for what you just did."

He smiled at his sister. "You're welcome. What did I just do?"

She shrugged and all but whispered, "You went inside and let Teek give me a goodnight kiss. Thanks for trusting us, Broseph."

"Oh, I trust Teek all the way," Dipper said.

"And me?"

He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms sternly. "Not for one second."

And that started a romping pillow fight.


	4. Chapter 4

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 2016)**

* * *

 **4: Shrooms for One More**

Ticknor Keevan O'Grady had been nicknamed "Tick" when his family first moved to Gravity Falls and he had entered school. Those had been miserable months. Coming new into a school, being tallish but extremely skinny, he had fallen victim to the outsider syndrome. The regular kids took one look at him and thought, "Punching bag!"

Ticknor was in many ways a talented kid—he knew how to cook, he was great with a camera, he wrote little plays that adapted favorite stories of his— _Treasure Island_ had been one of the first—although he never tried to get anyone to perform them. Heck, he never even showed them to anybody.

But he dreamed of one day making movies.

Still, he lacked certain social skills. He did not have the knack of bullying weak kids. Though he had moved to Gravity Falls when still a pre-teen, he had no gift for sarcasm and never got the knack of making younger kids cry. When someone kidded him harshly, he didn't get mad, but just smiled weakly. He was a little too awkward and clumsy for most sports and too insecure to learn a skill like dancing. He was, face it, a loner.

And then the next summer, he'd met Mabel Pines. He'd told her that he preferred to be called "T.K." She ignored that and promptly christened him "Teek." And . . . he liked that. Over a period of time he developed a small crush on Mabel. The period lasted about five hours, leaving him yearning for her company. Come on, Mabel was, as she kept insisting, irresistible, and five hours is a period of time. Time is relative, you know.

So Teek had a secret crush. He never expected to act on it—she was outgoing and funny, and he was shy and quiet.

But then . . . a boy Mabel really liked, a strange other-worldly kid named Russ, turned out to be not a human, but something called a foxen, kind of a werefox, except he could change to either a boy or an animal at any time and did not have to wait around for the moon to transform.

And the boy, Russ . . . had died.

Mabel saw him die. He charged to head off a weird and terrifying monster that was intent on destroying Mabel and all her family, and Russ couldn't stop it, but he diverted it and saved Mabel's life, but he—he really and truly died. And the death shattered Mabel.

Moved by sympathy (Teek's own family had pulled through the wrenching, unexpected death of one of their own) more than by love, Teek had offered her an arm to support her and a shoulder to cry on. That first summer, they had become friends, and maybe a little bit more. And now—he felt sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

Except for college. He had an offer of a scholarship too good to refuse, but it would take him all the way across the country for four years, and he and Mabel couldn't be together, because she had her heart equally set on a prestigious arts college in California. That introduced a note of uncertainty, and oddly, random, ever-optimistic Mabel did not react well to uncertainty.

They'd had their first quarrels. Both of them regretted the disagreements, but neither knew quite how to get past them.

However, Teek was working hard to heal the rift. He was tempted to pull back, give in, and try to go to college closer to Mabel, but—well, he wasn't rich, and this was too great an opportunity to decline.

Then, too, he had earned his chance. In a national high-school competition, his short student film, _A Maze_ , a dreamlike fantasy of a teen girl trapped in a weird labyrinth, had won first place. He was proud of that, though not so proud that he had ever shown the film to Mabel or her brother Dipper—they'd recognize the source. But most of all, Teek had the feeling that if he caved and turned down the scholarship, Mabel would lose respect for him. So there he was, trapped in a maze of his own, the walls made of doubts, hopes, and fears.

He had spoken with Jeff, the Prime Minister of the Gravity Falls Gnomes (or at least of that portion of them who lived above ground and considered themselves civilized), and quite early on the morning of Saturday, July 9, he drove to the Mystery Shack, where no one was yet awake, and in the dawn twilight walked down the Mystery Trail, through pearly waist-high curling ground fog, to the bonfire clearing.

He carried a bag of mushrooms.

In the bonfire clearing, he started to sit on the log, but felt it and it was too wet. He stood with the bag cradled in the crook of one arm, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was not an outdoorsman. Until his family had moved to Gravity Falls, he'd never been out in the woods at night, or in the early morning. Being alone made him nervous. Things lived in these woods, not only Gnomes, but killbillies, manotaurs, and gremloblins, oh my.

About five minutes passed, and then he heard Jeff's voice: "There you are! Did you bring the goods?"

"Yeah," Teek said, getting over his initial involuntary start at the voice coming from down around knee level. The pointed red cap moved toward him through the low fog the way a shark fin cuts through seawater.

"Got 'em both," Jeff said. "We had to do a little trading. You can't find stuff like that around here. The blue one comes all the way from North Carolina, wherever that is, and the green one from Arizona."

"How'd they get here?" Teek asked.

"Well, we have relatives in other parts of the country. Some of them don't call themselves Gnomes any longer—the North Carolina branch are, let me see if I can say this right, Nunehi. They're still mostly miners. And they put us in touch with their Western cousins, the Eluchi-i, who have the longest tunnels of any Gnomes. They love to collect glittering stones of all kinds, and they traded with us."

"How much did you give them?" Teek asked uneasily. He was saving for college, but—well, his family wasn't well-off.

"Oh, we gave them some of our best stories," Jeff said. He climbed up onto the log. "There you are! Hard to see through the ground cloud."

Teek held out the bag of mushrooms. "Is this enough?"

"Wow. Uh, yes, it's sufficient."

Teek yipped. "Something touched my leg!"

Scowling, Jeff said, "Down, your Majesty! Sorry, I have to walk the Queen every morning. She won't hurt you. I've got her leash here."

Teek couldn't see what kind of creature was sniffing around his feet, but he could hear it. "Uh, could I have the stones, please"

"Sure." Jeff took off his hat and stretched up to hand Teek a little leather bag. "I hope these are big enough."

Very carefully, Teek shook the two tiny rocks into his hand. They were almost of a size, not very large, to be sure—between a sixteenth and an eighth of an inch in diameter. Both were round, and both had already been cut into facets. "These are great," he said. "Thanks."

"Thank you! It's a pleasure doing business with you. The Privy Council will feast tonight! Hey, Steve, Bella, come and help me carry the goods!"

Two more Gnome caps came through the mist and joined Jeff up on the log. A male and female Gnome—you could tell because one had no beard—took the bag, grunting with either effort or appetite. Teek very carefully put the sapphire and the peridot into the leather bag and the bag into his pocket and said his farewells.

The Gnomes vanished into the fog, taking their badger with them. When Teek got to the Shack, he discovered that her Majesty had peed on the cuff of his jeans. He had to borrow a pair from Dipper and toss his own into the wash. Badger wee has a lingering and very strong scent.

Oddly, when Mabel bopped into the dining room, she first hugged Teek and then sniffed. "New aftershave? Very manly. Mabel like!"

* * *

Teek's cover story was that he'd come over early because Soos anticipated another jam-packed tourist day. Dipper and Wendy were taking their usual break from their run, but she showed up in time to drink coffee while Teek, Mabel, and Dipper had their breakfast with Soos, Abuelita, and the kids, Harmony and Little Soos.

"Man," Wendy, who had little stress lines under her eyes that morning, said, "I hope the crowd today doesn't get as loud and pushy! I'm still a little big hoarse from yelling at kids to put stuff down."

"Soos wants us to restock the shelves first thing," Dipper said. "We're real low on a few things. Tourist maps, bumper stickers, uh, my books."

Soos made a point of stocking Dipper's two published novels, _Bride of the Zombie_ (available in both hardcover and paperback) and the new one, _It Lurked in the Lake._ Dipper pre-signed them all as "Stan X. Mason," his pen name, and they were among the top sellers.

The day before, they had sold eighteen of the first one (hardcovers still sold, but the paperbacks were a little more popular) and twenty-two of the second, so they broke open a new carton of the lake-monster book and restocked, twenty-four copies of it on the end-cap shelf, plus twelve hardcovers and a dozen paperbacks of _Bride._

"Is the lake one still on the best-seller list?" Teek asked.

Dipper nodded. "It was last week. This week's list should come out today. Uh, my agent keeps hinting around about some deal she's got cooking, but she won't tell me what it is."

"Movie!" Mabel said. "Movie deal! Come on, movie deal!"

"I . . . don't know about that," Dipper said. "A couple of studios have expressed interest, but nothing ever comes of it. I'm not gonna hold my breath."

They put the usual trinkets, tee-shirts, and souvenirs on the shelves, and Soos displayed some one-of-a-kind goodies in the locked case he had put in—a tooth from a real Manotaur (knocked out during some playful wrestling), mounted inside a little glass dome, a luck-stone from the fairies (a polished round gleaming semi-precious mineral about the size of a robin's egg) which did not _bring_ you luck, but _predicted_ luck—if you asked it, "Am I going to get a raise?" and it turned dark purple, the answer was "Odds are against you," but if it turned a golden yellow, your chances looked good. Dipper said it was the fairies' version of a Magic Eight Ball.

Special items like those, or special lucky horse shoes, or chips of the Blarney Stone, cost up into the hundreds of dollars, but every now and then some well-heeled tourist sprang for one. And with the horde of visitors they anticipated, you never could tell.

By eight-forty, the crew were as ready as possible. Stan was back in Mr. Mystery garb, fez at a rakish angle, the golf cart was charged up, the tram was gassed and ready to roll, and the volunteers (Lorena and Sheila) had taken their places. Wendy would, as usual, take charge of the gift shop, Soos would drive the tram, and Grunkle Stan would conduct museum tours. Ford—would go downstairs and putter around in his labs. Just as well. He couldn't resist informing a tourist, "That's a bogus relic, you know."

Wendy looked out the window. "Here we go! Two tour buses pullin' in, gang, and cars are lined up behind them. We ready?"

Mabel gave her a thumbs-up from her perch behind the newer of the two cash registers. "Let the fleecing begin!"

Teek, in the snack bar way ahead of time, had everything prepared for lunch and had baked trays of chocolate-chip cookies and brewed urns of coffee, caffeinated and de-. "Guess we can let them in," he called. Sheila would work at the snack-bar register.

"It's show time!" Stan said. He opened the gift-shop door and crossed the lawn to meet the crowds spilling out of the buses. Even from inside, Dipper could hear his raucous greeting: "Ladies, gentlemen, and kiddies! Welcome to the Mystery Shack, the home of baffling befuddlement! I'm Mr. Mystery! Prepare to be mystified, amazed, and amused!"

Dipper glanced out. Tourists were posing with Stan, getting their pictures snapped.

He cracked his knuckles. In a few minutes he'd be playing the keys of the register the way Marc-André Hamelin played the piano. And the keynote would be the sales bell.

The fully-loaded tram rumbled off for its first tour of the Mystery Trail. Stan led a huge group around to the museum entrance, where Lorena collected the admissions. A dozen tourists came straight into the gift shop and began to browse.

Dipper couldn't help grinning. He'd been thinking that things changed and that change was always unsettling.

"Don't touch that!" Wendy warned an eight-year-old kid, who was yelling like a brat about wanting that one, whatever it was.

Dipper couldn't see, but the way Wendy corralled the kid and directed him to something else seemed so familiar.

It was a relief that some things never changed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 9-10, 2016)**

* * *

 **5\. Take a Hike**

Saturday was just as hectic as Friday had been. In fact, it was a little more crowded, but at least for the most part, the tourist kids weren't as destructive.

Again Teek worked the snack-bar grill past normal closing hours, and again the tourists took plates of food out to the picnic tables. Soos said, "I could, like, put French doors in that wall there opening onto the lawn, and we could make the picnic thing a regular thing. I'll think about that this winter!"

Teek finally had to close down, everything but beverages, at four because they flat ran out of supplies. He and Abuelita cleaned up the kitchen and he went out onto the lawn with a big trash bag to tidy up. Tourists tended to ignore the big trash cans Soos had left out after the Fourth of July barbecue, which Teek said was just as well, because any bits of food they tossed attracted possums, raccoons, and Gnomes. He normally finished his duties at three, but finally wound up a little before five that afternoon.

He and Mabel had a movie date for that evening, and he'd brought a change of clothes—he was uncomfortably aware that after a day over the grill, he smelled like hamburgers—and he borrowed the upstairs bathroom to shower and change.

When at six P.M. a dozen tourists were still milling around in the gift shop, Grunkle Stan expertly cut them out, like a cowboy working a herd of stubborn longhorns, and ushered three or four at a time up to the counter to pay for their purchases. Finally, about twenty minutes late, the last ones left with a big bag of merchandise.

"Bar the door!" Stan bellowed, slamming and locking the gift-shop door. "Roll that Aztec calendar over and brace the door! Get a hammer and nail it shut!"

"Wow," Dipper said, balancing his register. "Never thought I'd see Stan close the door on the possibility of more money!"

"I know, right?" Wendy asked, leaning on the counter.

With Teek standing nearby, Mabel was punching numbers into a calculator, pausing now and then to blow at a strand of her hair that kept flopping down the side of her face. "How long is this madness gonna go on?" she groaned.

"'Nother three weeks," Wendy told her.

"It's always nutso crazy right after the Fourth," Soos said, pulling a chair out from the snack bar and settling down on it. "This summer, though, it's like coocoo bonkers!"

"The economy's got better," Stan said as Sheila came up and started to massage his shoulders. "Plus, you and Melody been doing a great job of pluggin' the joint on TV and such. That's nice, honey."

"Thank you, Mr. Pines!" Soos said.

"I was talkin' to my wife," Stanley said. "But you and Melody done good, too."

Wendy smiled and told Mabel, "The traffic will ease off now. This is always the heaviest tourist week. By August we'll be about back to normal. Then there's the pre-Labor Day run-up, but that's not hardly as bad as this."

"Bad?" Stan asked, taking off his eyepatch and fez. He put his arm around Sheila. "Bite your tongue, Wendy! Nothin's bad about takin' money from guys who are eager to get rid of it! The only side to it us up! Oh, yeah, I got a little to add in—here ya go, Dipper." He put down four twenties and a ten on the counter. "Add that to your take."

Dipper, who had just totaled up, grimaced. "But—I don't have a receipt to cover that."

"Receipt, my foot," Stan said. "That represents bets I made with three separate smart-asses on a card trick!"

Sheila said, "Stanley, you didn't!"

"Look, hon, I did the trick like two dozen times. Those three wanted to bet me it couldn't be done—they brought up the wagers themselves. I suggested twenty bucks, and when one guy wanted to bet me a hundred, I was the one held it to a cap of fifty smackers! Wasn't my fault I took their dough!"

"You made the bet, you keep it." Dipper pushed the bills toward Stan.

He pushed them back. "Nah, I wanna make sure the Shack set a record this week, even with takin' the Fourth off."

Dipper pushed the bills back. "But it fell on a Monday! The Shack always takes Mondays off!"

"I'll take 'em, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said. "Teek, hand it to me, please."

Teek picked up the ninety bucks. With a nod of approval, Stan said, "See, Dipper, your sister could be a success in business, but you couldn't, 'cause you don't know how to negotiate!"

"Negotiate," Mabel said complacently, adding Stan's total to her own, "is a business term meaning 'make somebody knuckle under.'"

"Hah! That's my pumpkin!" Stan said proudly.

Dipper and Mabel compared register totals. Mabel won by ten dollars—courtesy of the ninety that she'd accepted from Stan—but Dipper let her have the little triumph without quibbling. Rubbing his hands, Stan observed that the grand total was enormous, easily the equivalent of a good week's business back in 2012.

"OK," Wendy said, pushing herself back to the vertical and arching her back. "Enough money talk. Say goodbye to me and Dipper, everybody! I'm takin' him off on an overnight campin' trip."

"Don't you need a chaperone for that?" Mabel asked suspiciously.

"I'm an adult," Wendy reminded her. "Technically. Technically an adult. So I can chaperone."

"I'll have to remember that one for later," Mabel said, smiling.

Dipper had already packed his camping gear, but when he went up to his room for it, he took time to wash his face and brush his teeth—a shift behind the register always left him a little grimy, and missing lunch except for wolfing down a really fast bologna sandwich left him with a bad taste in his mouth. He checked his bedroll to make sure he had included his little roll of peppermint Life Savers.

Yep, there they were. He tucked them into his jeans pocket and was all set.

"C'mon, man!" Wendy called from the bottom of the stairs. "We're wasting daylight. I don't want to hike out to the campsite in the dark!"

She was only teasing, because they still had hours of sunshine left—at that time of year, in central Oregon the sun set around nine PM—but Dipper hurried. They stowed his camping stuff—he was bringing the tent, one that Wendy had given him for Christmas some time back—in the trunk, next to Wendy's bedroll and knapsack of food. She added a small insulated bag with, probably, more goodies.

"You wanna drive again?" Wendy asked.

"Yeah, I'll be glad to," Dipper said, grinning.

"Here ya go." She handed him her keys.

* * *

They drove back up into the hilly part of the Valley, past the abandoned, ruined church where once a geyser had rescued Soos, Stan, Waddles, Mabel, and Dipper from a pterosaur. A little way from it and across the highway was the old cemetery where Pacifica's boyfriend, a reformed vampire, had once, um, is _lived_ the right word here?

Anyway, finally they bounced along an old logging trail, never paved, almost up to the edge of a gorge. The ruins of an old bridge had fallen down into the stream, and on the far side they could see the bluff cliff of a mountain, a spur that concealed from view the ghost town of Plenty, once centered on a now-played-out mine.

"Lock it up," Wendy said as they got out of the Dodge Dart. They retrieved their packs and helped each other adjust the straps for a more comfortable fit. Then Wendy said, "Wagons, ho!" and led the way into the woods.

When they got close to the beaver pond, Dipper said, "It's a lot wider than it used to be!"

"Mm, yeah, all that rain back last month," Wendy said, glancing over at it. "Water level's still goin' down. Most of that's only a few inches deep, though. You can see weeds and saplings sticking out of the water."

Ghost Falls was about twice as big as Dipper remembered—still swollen with run-off rain, he supposed—and the illusion of a gigantic ghostly figure in the cascade of water couldn't even be made out, just a blotchy white area. They climbed the grassy dome of a hill that was Wendy's favorite camping spot and pitched the tent. The roaring of the falls sounded like wind in the tops of very tall trees.

By then the sun almost touched the horizon. A pale crescent moon showed above it in the western sky. It had been a fine, clear day, and Dipper could see for miles. And the temperature had topped out in the mid-eighties and wouldn't go below fifty-five that night. Good camping weather.

"There!" Wendy said, finishing with the tent. "Let's hang the food up in a tree in case there's hungry bears around, and then let's go fishin'."

The fishing hole was a fairly broad, rocky basin. "I'll take you out some time and teach you real fly fishing," Wendy promised. They were fishing with flies, but not with fly rods—just thin monofilament line tied to a short bamboo pole. Standing a little way upwind from the pond, they tossed the flies onto the surface and then twitched them. The trout were not at all suspicious, and in ten minutes Wendy had landed two good-sized fish and Dipper one. "That's plenty," she said.

Dipper collected the firepit stones and gathered deadfall wood for the campfire while Wendy filleted the fish. In half an hour, she'd cooked up a tasty dinner—fresh trout ("No better tastin' fish in the world," she told Dipper), plus a potato cut up into rounds and fried next to the fish, and a kind of veggie stew that she'd frozen in bags. As soon as the potatoes were done, she dished them up and started reheating the veggies.

In a day turned ruddy with sunset light, they sat cross-legged on the grassy hill, their plates on their knees, and ate dinner, washing it down with instant lemonade powder and water from their canteens. "This is great," Dipper said. "What's the veggie?"

"Guess you'd call it a version of ratatouille," Wendy said. "Aunt Sallie just calls it 'this and that stew.' You cook a diced-up eggplant with onions and garlic, then add some summer squash and zucchini, chopped-up tomatoes, mushrooms, whatever else, and simmer until it gets bubbly-thick. You like it?"

"It's good," Dipper said.

"Real good on a cold day," Wendy agreed. "OK, let's police the area!"

By then the sun had vanished, but Dipper obediently used a folding shovel to bury the fish leavings and the meager scraps of cooked food a good distance from the hill. Wendy scrubbed the pans and utensils.

When Dipper re-joined her, Wendy had unrolled the sleeping bags. The two-person tent had just about enough room for both of them. She had also spread a layer of dirt over the campfire embers, effectively banking the flames. She stood up and dusted her hands. "All done?"

"Yes," Dipper said. "Buried it all about a foot deep, two hundred feet from the water."

"Good man. How's about you and me hiking over to the hot spring and relaxing?"

"OK," Dipper said. "But, you know—gonna get me going."

"That's the plan," she said with a mischievous grin.

The spring lay only about a ten-minute walk from the hill, but they took a trail flashlight (and Dipper, ever cautious, made sure he had his small pocket one as a backup) and walked through the deepening twilight. The silver moon smiled down at them and vanished behind the cliffs just before they reached their destination.

The hot spring nestled in not-quite-a-cave, a scooped-out overhang up against a rocky cliff. Wendy kicked off a boot, tugged off her sock, and dipped a toe in. "Just right," she said. "It's funny, but sometimes the spring runs colder, sometimes hotter. This is great."

They turned their backs to each other while stripping. Then Dipper heard Wendy plunge in. "C'mon, man!" she said. "Water is perfect!"

Keenly aware that, dark though it was, she could see his bare backside, he stepped back and hopped into the spring, holding onto the side. Only when he was in shoulder-deep water did he turn around to face her. "It does feel good," he said.

"I checked it once with a thermometer," Wendy told him. She had sunk down so that just her head was above water. It was dark enough so he couldn't see anything of the submerged parts of her. "One hundred degrees even. And I think there's probably minerals in the water, too. Just like a spa!"

The spring was almost circular, six or eight feet across, its sandy bottom about four and a half feet down. The rim was all stone, except at the side closest to the beaver pond where a rivulet had eroded its way to form a winding, soggy watercourse where the spring run-off meandered through the marsh and into the pond. In the natural hot tub, Dipper edged around until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Wendy.

"Feel better about skinny-dipping now?" she asked him.

"I could get used to it," he admitted. "But, you know—until we're really and truly married, I sort of want to—keep some things to, um, look forward to."

Wendy laughed. "You are so adorable," she said. "Adorkable! That's the word. Kiss me."

For a time they both enjoyed one of the peppermint candies he had packed. Then, not really doing anything erotic, they stretched out in the water. and held hands. It was probably the dissolved minerals, but something gave them extra buoyancy, so they let the water hold them up and lay with their heads on the side of the spring like two ships moored side by side. Too lazy even to use their touch-telepathy, Dipper said, "I've been thinking about that time Mom and Dad took me and Mabel to Orlando. I mentioned that the other day. You know there's a town and lake there named 'K-i-s-s-i-m-e-e?"

"Sounds like my kinda place," Wendy murmured.

"Only it's pronounced 'KisSIMMy," Dipper said.

"Aw, now you ruined it."

He smiled. "You ever been to Disneyland?"

"Are you kidding, man? With Dad working every week of the year and four kids to take care of? Not hardly."

Dipper asked, "Would you like to go?"

Wendy considered the question. "Dunno. I do like rides and stuff when a carnival comes through. But I guess I grew right past the kiddie stuff real fast—I mean the costumed characters and all. I guess if I were a mommy, I'd love to take my kids there someday. Why, dude? You asking me out for a date?"

"Sort of, in a long-distance way. Thinking about honeymoons," Dipper said.

She chuckled. "All I want for our honeymoon is a place somewhere real private with space around it and preferably a hot tub or a swimming pool. I got my fantasies about loving in the water, you know. You better look out for me this evening! Oh, and I want a place with a great big king-sized bed, too. The kind that gives you room to explore uncharted territory."

"That sounds good to me," he said.

She snuggled a little closer to him. "OK, dude," she said. "Here you are with a naked girl—"

"A _beautiful_ naked girl," Dipper corrected.

"—thank you, and she's agreeable to anything but that one thing we promised we wouldn't do. Wanna fool around a little?"

"I wouldn't mind," Dipper confessed.

And they did stay true to their vow, but they also did a little, well, call it 'exploring' that night. When it came time to get out, dry off, and get dressed, Dipper was no longer bashful. In fact, he and Wendy helped each other into their clothes.

And the helping was probably why it took them a half hour longer than it should have.


	6. Chapter 6

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 9-10, 2016)**

* * *

 **6: In Love with Night**

The crescent moon had gone to bed by the time Dipper and Wendy walked up the hill to their tent. For a long time they sat on a ground cloth, then lay back, side by side, and just looked up at the stars.

So many stars. Gravity Falls did not suffer from light pollution, and on a still, clear night the sky was full to overflowing. They could even see the silvery swatch of the Milky Way, which Dipper said he could never see in Piedmont. "Too much air pollution and too much light spill from San Francisco and Oakland," he said.

Wendy was holding his hand. They were dressed, but barefoot, and they'd agreed on separate sleeping bags for when they turned in eventually. Being together in the nude while immersed in a hot spring is one thing. Sleeping in one bag with someone you love is something else again, and far too tempting. She sent him a message: _Dipper, you should totally come back and go camping with me in the middle of winter. On a real cold night, the stars are bright enough to light up the world._

— _That's the extremely low humidity. But wouldn't it be cold?_

 _Well, yeah, dude! Of course. But we could dress warm and cuddle up together. Anyways, if we don't go camping, we should at least go star-watching. You see a lot of meteorites then, too, if you're patient. And sometimes the aurora._

— _I've never seen that in Piedmont,_ he confessed.

 _Hey, look. Is that down there in the southwest a star or a planet? The bright one?_

— _Let me see._

She flashed him a mental image of what she was looking at. _Right there._

— _Oh, that's Saturn, I think. Yeah, and to the right of it, the red one, that's Mars._

 _Two planets at once! How cool is that?_

Dipper shifted around and peered. _—Nope, too late. Venus was out, but I think it's behind the cliffs now._

 _When we get married, let's buy us a telescope._

That surprised him. He was the geeky one. — _Strange idea, but I'm game._

 _Yeah, but I've never looked at the moon or the planets with a telescope._

— _OK. What's that weird little thought that I keep getting flashes of? Shakespeare?_

She laughed and said out loud, "Yeah, we read _Romeo and Juliet_ in eleventh grade. Well, some of us did. That's a quote I remember. It's after Romeo and Juliet secretly marry, and she's waiting for him to come to visit her at night. What she doesn't know is that Romeo just killed her cousin Tybalt in a duel, and now he's on the run from the law, right? Let me see if I can remember the whole thing. OK, she's standing on, like, her balcony, right? And she's looking at the sky and says about Romeo, 'When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he shall make the face of heaven so bright that all the world will be in love with night.' I think I flubbed a few words, but that's the gist."

— _Oh, I see. Just married and she can't wait for him to die, huh?_

Wendy gave him a nudge _. No, dude! She just wants the rest of the world to see Romeo like she does. You did read the play, right?_

— _We had to read it and act out scenes in class, too. I kinda remember the quote. Don't remind me._

 _Why not? It wasn't a hard play to understand. I didn't think I'd like it, but I kinda did._

— _It's not the play, but our teacher, Mrs. Buchan, made Mabel act out the Juliet part for the 'wherefore art thou Romeo' balcony scene and I had to read Romeo's lines. Awkward!_

 _Yeah, I can see that._

— _Some of the kids started saying it was twincest. Big laugh._

 _Sorry, man. You'd think teachers would be more sensitive to stuff like that. You didn't ask her to change the casting?_

— _You can't argue with her. The kids had a nickname for her. It was an adjective and her last name, and they rhymed._

 _They rhymed?_

"Blankin' Buchan," he said aloud.

 _Oh. Oh, I get it. OK, we won't go into that._

They star-gazed until they got sleepy, spotted three unspectacular meteorites, listened to the muted roaring of the falls and the chirping of crickets, and at last went inside the tent and got into their separate bags. But they slept in some clothing, even if it was underwear, and with their arms stretched out, holding hands. And all the happy dreams they had, they shared.

* * *

On that same night, Mabel and Teek had a good movie date. They saw _Finding Dory,_ which they both agreed was sweet and funny, but not quite as good as the first one. They had pastry snacks at a coffee shop afterward and then drove up to Lookout Point for a little alone time.

They even talked about plans, the first time that summer they'd had a really serious conversation about the future.

Teek asked, "Could you wait for me? Would it be all right if we put off getting married to after college?"

Snuggled against him, gazing out over the distant town and the starry sky, Mabel said, "I don't know. I think maybe so. If we text each other every single day, at least once, or more when things are going bad or we just feel lonely. And face-time at least three times a week."

"Sure," Teek said. "I'd want to do all that. And I wouldn't take summer classes, either. Now, at the film school, the summer after you're a junior, you're required to work as an unpaid intern on a production shoot for at least eight weeks."

"Unpaid, huh?"

"It's like an apprenticeship," Teek said. "And you still get a month off. And I think you get an allowance for food and stuff, you know, a per diem. But no actual pay, and no credit on the screen."

"That sucks."

"Just the way they do it," Teek said. "And there's no telling what you have to do as an intern—go for coffee, or take notes for the script supervisor, or even stand in for an actor when they're doing lighting set-ups. It's a chance to observe a real movie shoot, though, and that's the main idea. It's not exactly glamorous. But hey, maybe you could come out that summer and visit the set."

"Yeah, if I have enough money for an airplane ticket," Mabel said.

"We can scrape it up somehow."

"I just wish we could get married first," Mabel told him with a sigh.

"I'd love that, but it'd make staying apart a lot harder. Anyway, I want to have some way of supporting us," Teek said. "After college, even if I can't get a movie job right away, I'll have skills enough to find something."

"Chauvinist," she said. "I'm gonna be a famous fashion designer or commercial artist by then."

"We'll hope," Teek said.

After a smooch break, Mabel murmured, "Teek? About this intern thingie?"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me you'll refuse to help if they're doing nude shots of a gorgeous actress," she said, halfway teasing.

"I don't think they actually do those in modern movies," Teek told her. "Usually the actor wears a leotard, a body suit, and if they want details, they either do CGI or use a body double."

"Body double? You mean like stunt boobies?" She giggled.

"I guess so," Teek said with a chuckle.

"Maybe _there's_ a job I could do!"

He didn't laugh. "I wouldn't want you to, unless you did it invisibly. Anyway, for Christmas break and spring break and every summer, I'll come back to you."

"You better," Mabel said. "OK, let's make some ground rules. Neither one of us will date other people. If we go out, it'll be in a group, OK?"

"Fine with me," Teek said. Truth to tell, he had rarely gone out on real dates all through high school so far, unless he was with Mabel. "But what about, I don't know, something just casual, like having lunch with somebody or something?"

"That would be all right," Mabel said thoughtfully. "As long as there's no flirting, no kissing or holding hands, and it's just friendly. But still try to have two or three other people along if you can."

"And you'll do the same?"

"Oh, sure, I promise," Mabel said. "Now, about making new friends . . . ."

It wasn't exactly a passionate evening up there on Lookout Point, where most teens came to park and make out (for varying values of making out) but she and Teek had a good talk, cleared the air, kissed and cuddled a little, and wound up feeling better about the future. And not once did they leave the front seats of his car.

And when you think about it, maybe that's about all a young and affectionate couple could really ask for on a beautiful summer night, with the stars twinkling down and love in the air. Maybe that can be just about enough sometimes.

Anyway, Mabel was feeling more like her old self after he dropped her off and kissed her goodnight.


	7. Chapter 7

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 10-11, 2016)**

* * *

 **7: The Future Is on the Way**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Sunday, July 10: I woke up this morning to see Wendy, still asleep, lying on her stomach. She'd tossed back the flap of her sleeping bag—they really are kind of hot, even if the nights here are cool. Anyway, she had bared her shoulders down to about the middle of her back. She was wearing a vest-type undershirt, and it had crept up, so a lot of her was bare._

 _She was sleeping with her cheek on her folded arm, a little smile on her freckled face. She looked so pretty in the early light that seeped into the tent. I slipped out of my bag as quietly as I could, got dressed and did a few other things, and then I cooked breakfast for us. Well, really just boiled some water for instant coffee and started a pot of oatmeal mix, with cinnamon, brown sugar, chopped dried cranberries, and walnuts._

 _I heard her stirring, and she came out of the tent in a few minutes, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Smells good," she said. She was wearing just the black undershirt and green panties. But she noticed me noticing, and she pulled on her jeans with an impish grin. "There, now you can simmer down. You sleep OK?"_

" _Really good," I told her. There is nothing so peaceful as a night sleeping next to a girl you love, I guess. We settled down and had our breakfast, though the instant coffee wasn't all that great, and then we cleaned up the pots, mugs, bowls, and spoons. There were no leftovers to bury._

" _OK," Wendy said, "you already had breakfast going, so that's all right, but you're not getting out of our morning exercise. Let's fold up the camp, and we'll hike back to the car, taking the long way around."_

 _As we did, I asked her, "Who owns this?"_

" _The land? Nobody, I guess. Back in the thirties, a couple of lumber companies bought up a lot of the Valley, but they moved on and kind of deeded their land back to the county. Now when Dad logs in the Valley, he leases the rights from the county."_

" _I wish we could buy it," I said. "Build a little cabin back in here, have the hot spring and the beaver pond and the falls and all."_

" _Not very convenient," Wendy said. "No electricity, no plumbing, real bad cell phone reception, even. We'd be better off closer into town."_

" _Well," I said as we rolled up the tent, "Grunkle Ford has his zero-point energy thing, so if he'd let us have a power cube, that would take care of electricity, and with electricity we could pump water in from the source of Ghost Falls, probably."_

" _You're gonna have to sell me on that one," Wendy teased. "And I don't think you can! I lived all my life in a log cabin, remember. Had enough of that for a long time. That everything? OK, let's pack it out. Gonna take us two hours, the way I got planned! Not a run, but a seven-mile hike."_

 _We set off around six-thirty in the morning, and she didn't let me slack off, either. It was at least as good a workout as a three- or four-mile run. When we were on the final leg, blazing a whole new trail back toward the logging road and her car, she gave me some news: "Been meaning to tell you, Dipper. I'm leaving home in September."_

" _What?" I asked. I have to admit, I immediately got my hopes up. I mean, I've fantasized about her moving to Piedmont before. "Why?" I asked._

"' _Cuz I'm nineteen. 'Cuz I'm out of school. And my dad thinks it's time I was out on my own. We had this talk—anyway, it's nothing serious, I mean I'm not getting kicked out, there's no big family break-up. I just want, you know, to have a little independence. So for the next year I'm gonna rent a room, continue to work at the Shack, and take my evening college courses. By the time we start at Western Alliance, I'll have a full year of credits, thirty-three hours."_

" _Double-check to make sure they all transfer," I warned her._

" _Got that taken care of. I have a temporary advisor at WA, and I check everything through him. I'm sticking to the basics for a freshman science major—two English comps, a lit, three maths, history, basic sciences, and so on. Once I start the program, I'll concentrate on environmental, biology, and forestry courses. Why are you looking at me funny?"_

" _You're talking like a college student! And I remember how you used to brag about slacking off in high school."_

 _She laughed. "Yeah, that was before I got serious, dork! Anyway, by the time we start, I ought to be able to pull the minimum—twelve hours a term—even if I have to work on the side. If I don't, I can do fifteen to eighteen hours a semester, full-time."_

" _You won't have to work," I told her._

" _We'll see. I'm applying for scholarships, but I'll bet lots of other people with academics better'n mine are applying, too. Anyway, time to worry about all that during the coming year, Dip."_

 _I asked, "Have you already got a place to live?"_

" _Well, yeah," she said. "This nice couple has a spare bedroom that they're willing to let me rent for a nice price. Dollar a month."_

" _A dollar a—" I started. Then I laughed. "Grunkle Stan and Sheila!"_

" _Close! Melody and Soos. They say I can bunk in Stanford's old bedroom. Remember when Soos found that door?"_

" _Oh, yeah," I said. "The room had the electron carpet on the floor. That thing was a big headache!"_

" _Well, that'll be my home base for the next year, startin' in September. Leaves me close enough to home to run over if Dad or the boys need me, but lets me get out of the house, too. And I'll work in the Shack up until we close at the end of November, then again starting in April, and during the winter, I'll help out around the house and house-sit in the deep part of winter when we're closed."_

" _That's not too shabby," I admitted. "Hey, there's the logging road!"_

" _Told you." My Lumberjack Girl had led us through a hilly, trackless woods, where you couldn't see more than fifty feet in any direction because of the trees, and had brought us out within sight of the Dodge Dart. I had a feeling she was going to do just fine as a forestry major._

* * *

They got back so early that Wendy and Dipper dropped in for services at the small country church where her family always went. It was a small congregation, only about fifty people—though with Manly Dan in a pew, it looked larger—and though everyone was clean and presentable, no one really dressed up, even Dr. Gaspell, the kindly-looking, balding minister, who wore a white shirt and blue tie, but no suit jacket.

They began with a few hymns, old ones that even Dipper knew (back in Piedmont his mom and dad had taken the twins to church and/or synagogue only ten times a year or so). Dan boomed along in a bass that made the stained-glass windows rattle. An usher passed a collection plate, and Dipper dropped in some money. Then Dr. Gaspell said a prayer and read the Scripture for the morning—from Isaiah 43—and then gave a sermon of reassurance, the keynote of which was "do not fear." It concluded with another prayer, and then for a few minutes the congregation socialized.

"You kids have a good time on your camping trip?" Dan rumbled.

"Yes, sir," Dipper said. "And we behaved ourselves."

"When I want to know that, I'll ask you," Dan said, but he had a twinkle in his eye. "You want to ask me anything, son?"

"Later on?" Dipper said. "Yes, I do, but—not today. Later on, if that's all right."

"All right with me," Dan said. "Wendy, you comin' home?"

"After I drop Dipper off. But remember, Dad, Dip and me are going shopping tomorrow. I may be late."

"That's all right, me and the boys will go out for dinner," Dan said. "I got no big jobs on tomorrow, so I'll just stay home and work on all the accounts. You two be careful on the highway, you hear? Dipper, you let her drive, all right?"

"Yes, sir," Dipper said.

"And you don't have to call me 'sir.'"

Dipper swallowed. "Sir, somehow I do. Maybe not after—uh, later, but right now—"

"I guess I can stand it," Dan said, grinning.

Dr. Gaspell stopped by. "Dipper! Good to see you again. How is Mabel?"

That was astonishing, since Dipper and Mabel hadn't even seen Dr. Gaspell since the day Robbie and Tambry got married—yet the little man remembered. "She's well, thank you," Dipper said.

"Please, you and Mabel come back and visit us," the minister said.

"I'll ask her," Dipper promised.

They went on to the Shack and got there in time for lunch. Soos, Melody, Abuelita, and the children had just returned from Mass. Mabel was off somewhere with Teek, so Wendy helped Abuelita prepare lunch, _crema calabaza_ (a thick, creamy pumpkin soup), a pasta dish with shell macaroni, mixed vegetables, and salsa, and the main course of shredded chicken in more red sauce with beans, accompanied by Abuelita's hand-made tortillas. Dessert was sopapillas, plus bananas in cream.

It was a heavier meal than usual for Dipper, but he took small portions and found everything delicious, even the pumpkin soup. After clean-up, in the early afternoon, Wendy and Dipper took Little Soos out onto the lawn, where he and his sister played with each other. Waddles and Widdles noticed them and sauntered over and let Little Soos ride them. He yelped with glee.

Later still, Wendy and Dipper finalized their plans. "We're gonna run," Wendy warned him. "You be up and dressed by six-thirty! We'll take our run downtown and back, shower, and have breakfast around eight. Then we'll take off for Portland. How many stores are we looking at?"

"I've got a list of six," Dipper told her. "I'd like you to pick out at least one style from each store that you like. Then I'll work with my budget and all and do our halfway-surprise when I give you the finished product."

"Sounds like you're building me a model plane," she teased.

"I just want to make sure it'll be one you like," he told her.

Wendy left for home in the late afternoon. Then half an hour later, Mabel and Teek showed up—they had been playing mini-golf, but not at the local mini-golf place because some of the Lilliputtians still harbored a grudge. While Mabel freshened up, Teek found some time to talk to Dipper.

He had some idea—from Mabel, of course, no secrets safe around her—of what Dipper and Wendy were planning, and he asked Dipper's advice for a project of his own.

"A promise ring?" Dipper asked. He hadn't ever heard of one.

"Kind of a pre-engagement ring," Teek explained. "A commitment, you know. Something that promises while we're apart, I won't forget her or get distracted or anything." He showed Dipper the two stones.

"Very nice," Dipper said. So I know one is a peridot, and the blue one is—what is it?"

"A sapphire," Teek said. "Not a star sapphire or anything. The peridot comes from Arizona, and the sapphire from North Carolina, I think. They're just semi-precious quality, but—"

"Birthstones!" Dipper realized. "What is sapphire? September, isn't it?"

"I think so, but it can be for April, too. That's when my birthday is. Uh—April first." He gave Dipper a crooked smile and a shrug. "Yeah, I know. I've lived with the joke ever since I started school."

"Everybody has to be born on some day," Dipper said, grinning. "April first is as good as any other." He handed the stones back to Teek. "Well, these are pretty, so now all you need is a ring."

"Do you know Mabel's ring size?" Teek asked. "I want to surprise her."

"I think she takes a seven," he said. "But I can sneak one of her rings out of her jewelry box and let you borrow it. The jeweler can tell you."

"Thanks," Teek said. He hesitated. "Do—do you think she'll accept it?"

"The promise ring? Yeah, I'll bet she will," Dipper said. "I think she'll be really happy to get it."

"That's a relief," Teek said. "Uh—silver or gold?"

"Silver for this one," Dipper said. "Maybe gold for the engagement ring later on, but with these two colors, the blue and the green, I think silver would be great. Oh, and don't make it over-fancy. Mabel saves the fancy for her sweaters!"

"Gotcha," Teek said.

"Here you are!" Mabel had visited her pigs and came bursting in on Teek and Dipper in the parlor. "What are you boys doing, cooking up some dark scheme?"

"You'll find out," Dipper said.

"Spread out!" They had been sitting on the sofa, but they had to move farther apart as Mabel threw herself between them. "Good! This place is getting dull. Time for some adventure! So what's the plan?"

"It's one full of danger," Dipper said. "Tomorrow, just Wendy and me—just the two of us—with no help from anybody—we're gonna go shopping."

"Boo!" Mabel said, though she was smiling. "I wanna see what you get as soon as you come home again."

"I'll remember that," Dipper promised. Since they were only window-shopping, that was a safe enough thing to pledge, he thought.

He didn't really anticipate any serious complications. But then—we never do, do we?


	8. Chapter 8

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 11, 2016)**

* * *

 **8: A Grand Day Out**

After their run on Monday morning, Wendy and Dipper showered, changed, and had breakfast just before eight. Soos, Melody, and the kids joined them—Mabel was sleeping in, since the Shack wasn't open on Mondays. Dipper told Soos they probably wouldn't be back until almost night.

The big guy said cheerfully, "Long as you're back for opening tomorrow, dawgs! Mr. Pines and Dr. Pines and their wives won't be here to help. Mr. Pines and Sheila are going to New Jersey for a couple of days so he can show her, like where he grew up and junk. And Dr. Pines and Lorena got called to go to New Mexico or some place because of some weird business going on. He's investigating and she's taking notes or some deal. So we're gonna need you!"

Wendy reassured him: "We'll be back tonight."

They left right after breakfast, and as she had promised her dad, Wendy drove the Dodge Dart. They gassed up before leaving the Valley, then headed north to hit Interstate 84 for the drive west, along the south bank of the Columbia River. Dipper was excited, a little tense—and apprehensive.

He'd been through Portland before, but had never really stopped to explore the town. His impression was that it was kind of like San Francisco, a crowded-together downtown with suburbs spread out around it. He didn't always do well in unfamiliar settings, so that was one thing contributing to his uneasiness. And now that he and Wendy were actually setting out to look at engagement rings—well, it _was_ a huge move, and it made his worrier kick in.

What if she didn't like any of them? What if she changed her mind, wanted to postpone the decision? What if the storekeepers didn't take them seriously? What if Wendy even backed out of their marriage plans? He kept rubbing his palms on the knees of his jeans because they felt damp.

Dipper spent most of the drive gazing out the window at the passing scenery: glimpses of the river, the pine-clad hills on the far side, and to the left, rocky bluffs and then taller hills with mountains beyond. Traffic began to turn sluggish after they passed Troutdale, and the last few miles turned into a spastic crawl, with lots of slow-down, speed-up situations.

"You nervous, man?" asked Wendy, who hadn't talked much, either.

"Kinda," he admitted. "It's a big step, isn't it?"

"We could just make a day of it," she said in a kind voice. "We don't have to be in a rush to get a ring, you know."

"No. Let's do it," Dipper said. "I want to, and I'm going to tell everybody, too—even at school. I want people to know. I don't think it's rushing things, Wen. I mean, we've been sort of hiding everything for three years now. And your friends probably still think it's cute that you date me in the summer, that there's not so much to it. Time it was in the open. I'll feel better then."

"Me, too. It's a deal," Wendy said. "OK, we're coming to the Portland exits. Give me a goal."

It was already getting on for eleven o'clock in the morning. Dipper used the GPS app on his phone to locate the first of the six jewelers, on the west side of the river. Wendy took the exit and slowed to city-traffic speed, and right away they ran into the first problem of shopping in freestanding stores in a city and not at a mall: parking.

Wendy found an on-street spot—"Parallel parking, boo!" she muttered, but she maneuvered into the slot with only one try, and no back-up monitor to help. When they got out, Dipper asked, "Where's the parking meter?"

"Down the block a ways," Wendy said. "This is pay-and-display, man. Don't you have that in Piedmont?"

"I . . . don't really know," Dipper admitted. "I never get to drive our car into town, I guess. Just to the mall and like that. I never paid much attention to town parking!"

"You gotta persuade Mabes to share the wheels, man. Anyway, it's easy," she said. "Hey, you don't have a credit card on you, do you?"

"A credit—no," Dipper said, absurdly slapping his pockets as if one might turn up by magic. "Do we need one?"

She grinned. "Well, you _can_ use one, but you don't have to. I changed out a five in the Shack, so I've got a pocket full of quarters. Here we go."

She stopped at the meter, fed in some quarters, and got back a little printed receipt. They went back to the car, she opened the curbside door, and then she stuck the receipt to the inside of the passenger window. "There we go. See? The receipt has the time of expiration on it. Best thing, if we get back and there's time left, we can park in any open metered space until time's up."

They had ninety minutes, but it turned out that they didn't need it. They walked two blocks to McSparkle's Fine Jewelry and looked at rings, but the sales clerk was annoyingly pushy—"That one will go fast, a five hundred dollar down payment will hold it"—and so after ten minutes they thanked her and left.

"Like any of those?" Dipper asked.

"Some were sort of OK, but man, I don't want a three- or four-carat diamond! The prices are through the roof, and they're so gaudy."

Dipper nodded, glad that they agreed. "What about the designs, though?"

Wendy tilted her head. "Mm, I like the solitaires better than the fussy ones—I'm not a fussy sort of girl, I guess. Oh, and I don't like the ones where the stone sticks way up. I'd be snagging it all the time, and what if I was tinkering with an engine and, like, snapped the diamond out of the setting and lost it? One that's a flatter cut would be safer, and I'd like it better, too. Prettier and much more practical."

Dipper shook his head. "I don't think practicality is usually an issue!"

She hip-bumped him as they walked side by side down the sidewalk. "Well, it is with _me_. Where to next?"

In _Yorokobi,_ where they explained up front they were just doing initial window-shopping, the clerks treated them more respectfully. Wendy found two rings that she liked—one a simple solitaire (but with a smaller stone, she insisted), one with a cluster of three smaller stones, two quarter-carats flanking a one-carat center diamond. Still, the cost of all three together was, she thought, way too high. Dipper used his phone to snap images of the ones she liked.

They walked back to the Dart, drove more than a mile to the next spot, and took advantage of the thirty-two minutes of parking they had left to look into Landlord of the Rings. The two ladies who owned the store graciously showed them rings in roughly Dipper's price range, maxing out at four thousand. None was exactly what they were looking for, but they were attractive and not gaudy, at least.

Wendy said another solitaire, this one three-quarters of a carat, was close, but again she'd like a different cut on the stone. "Oh, we can create a custom ring," their guide said. "Made to your specifications."

Dipper found a ring with a round, flatter stone. However, it was more than nine thousand dollars. "That's a pink diamond," the lady explained. "They cost a lot more."

"Do you like the color?" Dipper asked as Wendy slipped the ring on and examined it.

"Yeah. It's real nice, but not nine thousand dollars nice," she said, taking the ring off again.

After going back and photographing the ring that Wendy said was a possible, Dipper wandered off to ask the second lady about setting stones that he could supply.

"Of course," she said. "We do that all the time. We just need to know the ring material—silver, gold, platinum—and we can provide a design with your approval and then make it to order." The base for the work would be five hundred to seven hundred and fifty dollars for silver, a thousand for gold, and twelve hundred fifty for platinum.

"We know that not everyone can pay five thousand dollars and more for a ring, but we like to make it possible for young people who can't afford a very expensive ring to have something beautiful," she said.

"I may be back soon," Dipper said. "Thank you!"

After looking at a few more rings, Wendy said their parking time was almost up, so they looked for a place to have lunch. They found a quirky-looking little restaurant, Cocoa Moe's, which had a very small lot and offered free parking. "Let's check it out," Wendy suggested, and she lucked into a slot as someone else was leaving.

The rich chocolate smell almost overwhelmed Dipper as they entered. "Mabel would come in here and never leave again!" he said.

It wasn't a fancy place, just a few marble-topped tables for two or four, all but one already occupied. Counter service only, so they took the only available table and looked through the menu. "Yum!" Wendy said. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" she showed him her menu, with an item marked by her thumb.

" _We Mint It, Too_!" Dipper read. "'Bolivian dark chocolate, spiked with extract of organic, locally-grown peppermint.' Hot chocolate, huh?"

"Let's get a cup each," Wendy said. "And maybe split a sandwich?"

As it happened, Dipper found a sandwich on the menu that sounded promising: _Veg Way Do You Go?_ It was basically a veggie-with-cheese, but you could personalize it any way you wanted. They went for five-grain bread, grilled portabello mushrooms, sautéed onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and _Moe Sauce, Please_!

Dipper brought the tray back from the counter and set down the two oversized mugs of frothy hot chocolate, then put the plate with the cut sandwich halfway between them. It was plenty big enough for two, especially since it came with home-made chips.

Wendy took a sip of the chocolate, closed her eyes, and said, "We found our special place, Dip!"

It was incredibly tasty, just sweet enough with a subtle chocolate bitterness and a creamy texture, and spiked with the cool, lingering taste of mint, so reminiscent of good times with Wendy. The sandwich was delicious enough with its moderately spicy sauce and meaty mushrooms, but the hot chocolate was obviously Moe's pride and joy.

Best of all, they sold packages of the basic hot-chocolate mix, plus tiny little bottles of the mint extract. Dipper bought two of each. The woman at the register said, "Now, that's best if you use it within six months."

"I don't think we'll need to worry about that!" Dipper told her. He also found out that he could order the mix and the extract from Cocoa Moe's online store—all the better!

As they resumed their shopping at about twelve-forty, Wendy said, "Dude, I think the cocoa is a better score than an engagement ring! I _love_ me some peppermint, and the chocolate just doubles down!"

She drove downtown, to the next cluster of stores. Dipper photographed a few more rings, but he was getting a good idea of what Wendy would like, and he was feeling much better about the whole endeavor. At four-thirty, they decided to look at one last place, a huge chain jewelry store in a big mall.

Parking there was much more straightforward—you drove in, took a ticket, the boom gate lifted, you found your space and left your ticket tucked behind the visor. They spent more time in the mall than they'd planned, looking at clothes and other stuff as well as the rings, and they didn't leave until well past six.

"Better head straight back to the Falls," Wendy said as they made their way to the parking-lot exit from the mall. "We can stop for fast food or something along the way, but we need to get back. Tomorrow's gonna be crazy, and I want to get some sleep tonight."

They came out into a coolish, partly-cloudy late afternoon. Wendy said, "Nuts. I didn't memorize where we parked."

"I got it," Dipper said, taking out his phone. "I did a GPS reading and saved it."

"Smart guy," Wendy said. "I think I'd like to marry you."

The trouble came when they got to the parking slot (A-229) and found a 2014 BMW, light gray, parked there. No forest-green 1973 Dodge Dart was anywhere in sight.

Dipper said, "I don't understand—"

"Oh, man!" Wendy said, clenching both hands and sounding furious. "Somebody stole my car!"


	9. Chapter 9

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 11, 2016)**

* * *

 **9: Search for the Green Machine**

Roughly a quarter of an hour after they discovered the theft, Dipper and Wendy sat in the mall security office, staring at a video monitor. Beside them was Officer Donohue, a policeman who responded to Wendy's call.

"There's the car," muttered the mall security man, a huge guy who reminded Dipper a little of Tats, the bouncer at the Skull Fracture over in Gravity Falls. His name was Jackson, according to his name tag. "This is five o'clock. Let's fast-forward."

The image became a time-lapse of fleeting cloud shadows, pedestrians that appeared and vanished, and then, like a magic trick, the Dart was gone. "Whoa," Wendy said. "Back it up."

The time stamp isolated the moment of the theft as 1817—seventeen minutes past six. If Dipper and Wendy had ended their shopping ten minutes earlier than they had, they would have walked up on the thieves.

"Two guys," Jackson said. "Look, they got out of the black Impala. Still a driver in there, so that's three men in all."

The two skinny-looking guys approached the Dart. Both wore black hoodies, pulled tight and concealing most of their faces. One, the shorter one, danced from foot to foot and kept watch as the other used a slim-jim to open the driver's door. Then he leaned in and fiddled.

"Hot-wiring it," Wendy growled.

The man at the wheel beckoned, the other one got into the Dart on the passenger side, and the guy in the Impala flashed his lights. Both vehicles rolled out and turned toward the street exit.

"Why'd they want an antique like mine?" Wendy asked.

"Looked in good shape," Officer Donohue said. "They'll probably chop it for parts, though. Too unique for a re-sale. Get the plate on the Impala?"

Jackson rewound the recording and then leaned close to the screen. "Idaho plate," he said. "Whiskey-one, November-zero-seven-seven-echo-foxtrot." The policeman wrote on a pad "W1 N077EF." Earlier Wendy had given him the plate number for her car, and he had already called that in.

Jackson got busy with the monitor and switched to another vantage point. "Here they go, about half a minute later," he said. "OK, they paid at the machine, and now they're turning south on Ninth. And there they go."

Donohue called that information in and said, "Alert the State guys, too." He turned to Wendy. "That's about all we can do for now, Miss. I'll take you to the station so you can file a formal complaint, and we'll be on the lookout for both vehicles."

"That's all?" Wendy asked.

The policeman shrugged. "Sorry, for right now, that's about as much as we can do."

He drove them to a low one-story red-brick building, and Wendy went into an office to fill out the necessary forms. Dipper waited in the lobby and took out his phone to call Mabel. "Brobro!" she said happily. "Does Wendy have rings on her fingers and bells on her toes? Is that the way it goes? Hey, I rhymed! Soos, Soos, you oughta write this down!"

"Listen!" Dipper said so sharply that she did. He told her what had happened.

"Oh, no!" Mabel said, her voice heartbroken. "Wendy loved her car!"

"Well, we're gonna have to stay over until something breaks," Dipper said.

"We? You, too?"

"Mabel, I can't leave her! Listen, you and Teek drive over here—separately—and leave the Carino with me, OK? We need wheels."

"But what about tomorrow? It's gonna be packed, and Soos can't just close up!"

"You'll go back with Teek. Listen, call—call Gideon! He'll come in and help. And call some of your friends. It's not hard to learn the stuff we do for Soos."

"I'll do that now," Mabel said. "Wait a minute." He heard her talking to someone, and then she said, "Teek says it's fine, he understands. We'll be there in about two hours."

"Be sure to take your Bluetooth so we can talk," Dipper said. "I'll tell you where to meet us when I find out where we're gonna be. Oh, and throw a change of clothes, underwear, socks, shirt, jeans, in a bag for me with my toothbrush. And phone charger. And get Wendy's spare set of clothes from her locker and bring those too."

"Gotcha. I'll dig out one of those toothbrushes Soos's dentist always gives them—there's a drawer with four or five brand-new ones in it—for her. I think I got a spare phone charger for her, too."

"Great. I'll call you back."

After a few moments of hesitation, Dipper also called his Grunkle Ford's number. Ford answered almost right away: "Yes, Mason? Is it important?"

Dipper hurriedly told him what had happened. "Hm. Well, I'm up to my neck in a purported UFO crash, but let me make a quick call. Stand by. Shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes."

It took less. Dipper's phone rang, and he answered. A familiar voice said, "Mr. Pines. I understand you need some legal help. One moment, please." A strange buzzing sound came on the line for five seconds, and then the voice said, "This is Deputy Superintendent Powers. We're on a scrambling program, so tell me what you need."*

 _Powers, Powers—Agent Powers! The guy who the zombies dragged away!_ Hoping Powers wouldn't remember him from that experience, Dipper gave him all the information he had, including a description and the plate numbers of both cars. He added the GPS location from which the car had been stolen and told Powers the time and added that the theft had been caught on the mall security video. The former agent said, "I'll get to work on this. You might need a pen and paper when I call back."

Dipper had his pocket notebook. He took out a pen and clicked it anxiously for five minutes. And then his phone rang.

Powers said, "The Idaho plate doesn't belong on that vehicle. It was stolen a few days ago in Pocatello. Take down this number and have the authorities there call the Pocatello police." He read off a telephone number. "Got that?"

"Got it," Dipper said, reading it back to be sure.

"I tapped into the mall security video and copied the theft portion. I'm working with satellite imagery and the traffic cams in Portland now. The computer's searching for the plate numbers and vehicle desc—wait! Got them here—they were caught on traffic cam on Oregon highway 224, eastbound, the Impala in the lead. Just . . . thirty minutes ago, West Coast time. I'll give you the position." He read out longitude and latitude, and Dipper wrote that down.

Wendy came out of the office together with a woman police officer. Dipper hurried over. "The Idaho plate was stolen," Dipper told the policewoman. "Right now both cars are on Highway 224 heading east, just a minute ago at this location." He gave them the coordinates and the Idaho number so they could check with the police there.

"How'd you know that?" the officer asked suspiciously.

"I have a relative in Federal law enforcement," Dipper began. His phone rang. "Yes?"

Powers again. "I have an update from a satcam."

"Just a second. Could you tell Officer, uh—" Dipper read the officer's nameplate—"Frrederics? She's right here."

"Tell her I'm FBI."

"OK. This is an FBI agent, Officer." Dipper handed his phone over.

"Sergeant Frederics," the policewoman corrected. "Uh-huh. Right. I'll have to get the State Police on that." She went to a desk and bent over a pad, pen poised. "OK, give it to me now. . . got it. You sure? Big multi-state car-theft ring? Yeah, we've had a lot of trouble. Yes, sir, thank you for your help!"

She handed the phone back to Dipper and then called out, "Hey, Charlie! We have advice from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that this woman's stolen Dodge may've been taken by that gang that's given us so much trouble. Get this intel to the State Police and sent out an APB with what we have here."

* * *

After a quick flurry of activity, the police told Wendy all she could do was wait. Dipper privately informed her that Mabel and Teek were coming over and that he and Wendy would have Helen Wheels to do their own investigating. Wendy sighed and asked the receptionist, "Is there a motel somewhere close that's not too expensive? Looks like we're gonna have to spend the night."

There was one, a mis-named Urbanite Lodge, a mile south of the station, on Caruthers, just off Interstate 405. A pair of patrolmen volunteered to drop them off.

"One room or two?" Dipper asked.

"Let's see how much they'll charge us," Wendy told him. "They might refuse us a double. You still look kinda young for me, and we have no luggage—they might peg me as a hooker."

"I'll break their arms," Dipper said. That at least brought a fleeting smile to Wendy's lips.

It wasn't an encouraging place—stucco walls in bad repair, the underlying cinder blocks showing through in spots, with rust stains streaking from the room air conditioners that protruded over the walk. The lobby smelled unpleasantly of disinfectant cleaner and the windows were dingy. However, the price of a room was only seventy dollars.

"You have two adjoining rooms?" Wendy asked.

The clerk checked. Yes, 112 and 114 were vacant and were both singles. Dipper paid in advance—since they had no credit card, that was kind of a necessity. They got two electronic key cards and went back to find the rooms.

They were basic: Toilet with a shower but no tub, narrow single bed, no closet, but an alcove with a bar for hanging clothes, a small flat-screen TV, one straight chair to each room, one desk to each room, one drawer to each desk. Frayed gray carpeting that looked mostly clean except for a few unidentifiable stains. Dipper thought that it looked like a room a small-time thief on the run might rent.

Beside the head of the bed, a connecting door led from Dipper's room, 114, to Wendy's. He knocked and she opened it, looking grim. "I am gonna go nuts unless we can find my car," she said.

"I've got Grunkle Ford helping us," Dipper told her, and he explained about Agent—now Deputy Superintendent—Powers.

"The boys in black, huh?" Wendy said, rolling her eyes. They'd had run-ins with the Agency now and then, and though Wendy admitted their efficiency, she believed their social skills left a lot to be desired.

Dipper called Mabel—she and Teek were already on the way, in separate cars, as agreed—and gave her the address of the motel. "We're in rooms 112 and 114," he told her.

"Broseph!" she said. "Separate rooms, seriously? Come on, Wendy's gonna need a shoulder to cry on—"

"The rooms connect."

Mabel paused for two seconds. "Well, stick your shoulder through to her side! Get off the phone, call Teek—he's on Bluetooth too—and we'll both put the address in our GPS. GP-esses? That sounds weird. Anyway, give us about an hour and a half, two hours."

"Thanks, Sis."

"I'm doing it for Wendy," she said.

"That'll do."

Quietly, softly, Mabel added, "And for you, too, Dip. I'm awfully sorry."

With some time to kill, Dipper and Wendy walked around the block looking for somewhere to eat, though neither had much of an appetite. They spotted a dicey-looking little delicatessen-grocery, but Wendy said her stomach wouldn't tolerate a meaty sandwich just then. In the same building as the motel, but in back, stood Sazzy's Bar and Grill, which didn't appear promising either, but they tried it out.

It turned out to be a popular local place, with groups of twenty-somethings drinking beers, chowing down on bar food, and laughing. The two of them managed to get a tiny table in the back, and from the limited bar menu Dipper picked chicken fingers and fries, while Wendy went for a Korean bowl, vegetarian rice. Dipper drank water. Wendy asked the waiter, "If I want a glass of wine, you gonna card me?"

"Have to," the young man said apologetically.

Wendy sighed. "OK, then, club soda, extra lime."

They shared the food. The vegetarian bowl included mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, and onions and was interesting, the chicken fingers standard fried-chicken fare, the fries at least crisp and hot.

They took over an hour, lingering over the meal, before they walked back to the depressing motel. For over half an hour, Wendy paced, working off nervous energy. Around eight, someone tapped on the door—Mabel and Teek, Mabel with a big plastic shopping bag, the kind with handles. "Brought your emergency supplies," she said.  
"Clothes and toothbrushes. Teethbrush. Man, I'm overthinking plurals! Wendy, I'm so sorry."

"Not as sorry as those three guys are gonna be when I get hold of them!" Wendy promised. Mabel hugged her anyway.

Teek and Mabel couldn't stay—they had to work the next day—but Mabel told Dipper that she had rounded up a little help. Both Mabel and Teek wished them luck, and—last thing—Mabel told Dipper where she'd parked Helen Wheels. "You got your key, right?" she asked.

Dipper took out his keyring. It held a key for the Shack, a key for their house in Piedmont, and a car key. "Right here."

After they left, Wendy and Dipper sat on his bed, holding each other. "I wish we had some news!" Wendy muttered after fifteen solid minutes of silence.

Dipper's phone rang.

"Powers here," the voice said. "I have some news. Pines, I'm pretty sure we have a location for the car. We have a satcam image, but it's at a poor angle. It looks like the Dart, though, and we believe it's going to be inside a barn on an apparently abandoned farm fifty miles to the east of Portland, on a back-country road called Hablent. The Impala is parked in front of the barn. We don't think it would be visible from the road, but I've got the GPS coordinates. I'd advise speed in getting there if you want to keep it from being chopped."

Dipper told Wendy. She said, "Give us a head start and have him call the cops."

"Uh, a head—"

Wendy was already out the door, and he jumped up to join her, reaching in his pocket for his keys. "A head start, dude! 'Cause we gotta look for a place that's open and has a hardware department!"

"Give us twenty minutes," Dipper told Powers. "Then call your Portland police contact with the, uh, the intel."

Powers must have been under orders from Ford, who now was his chief. He didn't' ask questions, but said, "Twenty minutes from . . . now. Got it."

So they set off for the coordinates Powers had given Dipper, Wendy driving Helen Wheels and Dipper looking out for somewhere that would sell axes.

* * *

*The Agency's scrambling program is unique. What anyone eavesdropping on the call would have heard was, "This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We are tracking a multi-state robbery ring, and we need your help." The rest of the conversation was similarly encoded, though to Dipper everything came through in plain English.


	10. Chapter 10

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 11, 2016)**

* * *

 **10: Shots Fired, Man Down**

Wendy's visit to the Sprawl-Mart took longer than she would have wanted, and she wasn't really satisfied with the axe she bought—the best they could find was a lightweight tomahawk-style camping axe on a seventeen-inch handle. She also bought a braided belt and cinched it around her middle chest, so she could carry the axe behind her back.

They got back on the road, Dipper navigating with his cell-phone GPS, and headed east and into darkness. The GPS set them a complicated route, and soon they found themselves on US 36, the Mount Hood Highway. At first they passed bedroom communities and islands of shops and gas stations, and then individual houses and the occasional roadside business—Fat Fella's Tires, an RV lot, an auto graveyard—but surprisingly soon, they were driving through a relative wilderness, at least as far as houses and buildings went.

"Should be a country road turning off on the right in a mile or two," Dipper said. "That's Hablent Road. Then about seven or eight miles and we have to look for the farm off to the left."

Wendy slowed. Hablent was not a highly-improved road, to say the least. Narrow and crooked, its pavement battered to pieces, it wound through forest, with ferns crowding up to the very edge—you'd have a hard time finding a shoulder to pull off on, and the center line only occasionally ghosted into view, most of it having faded completely since it was painted, maybe during the Eisenhower administration. An alarmingly dilapidated wooden bridge crossed over what showed up on the GPS map as Bald Beaver Creek.

Wendy grumbled at the wretched driving conditions, but she didn't dare go more than forty-five, and on Hablent Road, that was pushing it. "It should be on the left somewhere pretty near," Dipper said after awhile. "At least, according to the coordinates. Nothing shows up on the map."

Wendy slowed to a crawl—there were no other drivers to bother—and they both stared out the driver's-side window, looking for any indication of a farm. "Think that's it?" Wendy asked.

Dipper raised up as far as he could in the passenger seat of the Carino and in the headlight glare saw what might have been a driveway. It looked as though at one time a wooden fence and gate might have stood there, but if they still existed, they had been completely reclaimed by a gangling tangle of western wild grapevine. Anyway, a weedy scrape, maybe an old driveway, led through a break in the foliage. Wendy turned and they crept along for thirty feet or so, barely able to tell where the drive was. The only clue was a flattened track where wheels had crushed the weeds.

"Lights," Dipper said.

Ahead, over a ridgy hill, flashes of blue and red pulsated. "Cop car," Wendy said. She killed the headlights. "Let's go from here on foot and see what's up."

They got out of the car and waded through brush to the top of the hill. For a few seconds they stood looking ahead and down. A derelict farmhouse, looking partly burned and half collapsed, leaned away from them. Behind it they could make out the police vehicle, its lights flashing, and beyond that a barn, in better condition than the house, apparently, and near the closed barn door the black Impala they had seen on the video.

"The cops beat us here," Wendy said. "Let's go see—"

From below a flash of light and a boom cut her off. Dipper pulled her down. "That was a gun!"

The gun fired again. Then the barn door opened a crack. "You get him?"

"Yeah, I hit him—if he's not dead, he's crippled!"

"Get back in here and let's pack up before more come!"

"Nah, I'm gonna find him and finish him off. Throw me one of them flashlights!"

Dipper swallowed. He whispered, "That's not a policeman. That's one of the thieves."

The two of them all but burrowed into the ground as the figure beside the barn flashed a beam of light across the ground. They saw him go to the cop car, lean inside, and do something. The flashing rack of lights went out, though he left the headlights on. From where they lay, Dipper and Wendy could see the figure of the thief outlined against the barn—the headlights lit it up—as he held a handgun up and ready in his right hand. In his left he held the flashlight, and as he stepped into the dark, he used it to scan the ground between the cruiser and the farmhouse.

"Come on," Wendy said.

"Where?"

"We gotta help the cop," Wendy said. "Be as quiet as you can, man."

They moved in a semi-crouch, trying to keep trees and the car between them and the prowling car thief. They were within a few yards of the barn when Dipper tripped on something. He went sprawling, and then groped for whatever had caught his feet. It felt hard and cold and rusty, and he grasped it, finally recognizing it for what it was: a crowbar that had spent maybe thirty years exposed to the weather. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing. He ripped it free of weed roots.

Then he heard a faint groan off to the left. Wendy must have heard it, too, because she changed direction. "Dip!" she said in a whisper.

The guy with the flashlight had gone inside the ruined farmhouse. They could see the dim illumination leaking from the empty window frames as he apparently searched the place for the policeman.

Who lay on his side in a kind of gully. "You hit, man?" Wendy asked him. "I'm the owner of the stolen car."

"Lost my sidearm," he whispered back. "Took two slugs in the chest, but my vest helped. I think I've got broken ribs. Got to get to the radio, call for backup. Who are you again?"

"Corduroy," she said. "I own the stolen Dart."

"Get out of here, get to safety and call 911."

"No way we're leaving you," she said. "This is Dipper Pines, my boyf—my fiancé. He'll help you back to our car."

"No," the officer said. "My partner's in the barn. I didn't hear any shots—but he may be hurt. Or dead."

* * *

They didn't have much time to improvise a plan, but they did their best. It looked as if the searching thief's only option—unless he wanted to bail out a window—was to exit by the same door he'd gone in. They flanked it, Wendy standing just behind the slight projection of a narrow porch on the door's right side, Dipper farther away and angled off to the left. "Don't miss, dude," Wendy warned.

"Do my best."

"And drop quick!"

The thief probably was in the house for less than five minutes, but it seemed like an hour. Then Dipper saw the flashlight beam and heard cautious, crunching footsteps and the groaning protest of rotting wood flooring. The guy came out, muttering curses.

Dipper reared, hurled the rusty crowbar hard as he could, and flung himself down again. The thief must have turned toward the sudden sound, because the flashlight stabbed in Dipper's direction a moment before the crowbar caught the guy square in the face. He didn't have time even to yelp, because Wendy stepped out and used her axe, which had a flat hammer-head opposite the cutting edge, to club him.

The guy collapsed. Dipper hustled to him, and Wendy grabbed his flashlight and then his gun, both of which he'd dropped. "Get him in the house," Wendy grunted.

He was out cold, and they dragged him inside into what had been the kitchen. The inside paneling had been ripped out, and they used the policeman's handcuffs to shackle him to a water pipe that felt sturdy enough to hold him. Wendy crammed Dipper's handkerchief into his mouth and tore off a strip of her shirt hem to tie the gag into place.

They went back to the cop car, its engine still running, and Wendy grabbed the radio mike. The injured cop had told her what to say. She turned the speaker volume low and gave the call sign. The dispatcher came back with the go-ahead. She said quietly, her mouth close to the speaker, "Listen, this is a civilian. You have a man down. Shots fired. The hurt policeman told me to say twelve-eighteen, repeat twelve-eighteen. You've got at least two bad guys in a barn. Send backup quick. Approach with caution. When you see the parked green Carino, that's a civilian car, that's ours. The barn's down the drive another hundred feet. Use caution!"

She signed off. Dipper hauled her back out of the cop car as the barn door opened, showing an oblong of light. "Roy! Where the hell are you, man?" somebody bawled. "You find the cop?"

Dipper hoarsened his voice and all but grunted, "No!"

"We're getting the hell out of here. Come and help us haul the tools! We'll take both cars."

He went back inside, leaving the barn door open. Dipper and Wendy hurried up. Either the guy who'd yelled for Roy or the other one came out with a heavy wooden crate in both hands. He met the hammer-head of Wendy's axe about forehead height and fell backwards, metal tools clattering.

"Clete, what the hell, man?" called another voice.

Dipper, his arms trembling, held up the heavy automatic the first guy, presumably Roy, had dropped. When the third dude came to the door, similarly laden down with a crate, Wendy hit him with the light, and Dipper yelled, "Freeze!"

"Don't shoot!" He threw down the crate and made as though to raise his hands, but then he grabbed a pistol from his belt and swung it toward Dipper. Who in another heartbeat might or might not have fired, who knows?

Except the thief didn't fire, because he couldn't. Wendy's axe had been quick, and it is virtually impossible to use a handgun when your shooting hand has been broken in four different places.

Wendy grabbed that guy's handgun and conked his noggin for good measure, and then she threw open the barn door. "There it is!" she said.

In the light of battery-powered lanterns her Dodge Dart looked whole and unharmed. Dipper grinned. For the moment, everything looked good. He and Wendy had managed to take down all three thieves.

Too bad they didn't know about the other one..

* * *

 _To be continued_


	11. Chapter 11

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 11, 2016)**

* * *

 **11: Standoff**

Dipper saw the fourth guy, off to the left, just as Wendy, all her attention focused on her car, took a step forward.

The man whipped his sidearm come up level, and then Dipper barreled into Wendy, hitting her behind her knees and knocking her down, just as the gun boomed and splinters exploded from the door frame. They had the Dart between them and the guy—he had fired over the top—and before he could come around the hood and see them to aim again, they scuttled behind a chest-high pile of car parts—engine blocks, quarter panels, transmissions, piled higgledy-piggledy off to one side. Everything smelled like used motor oil.

They could hear the guy cursing and yelling for the others, who did not answer, probably because one was handcuffed to a water pipe inside the tumble-down farm house and the other two were crammed into the locked Impala trunk—Dipper had found the Chevy keys on the second guy they had put down.

In a panicky, high voice, the thief bellowed, "Bitch! Come out where I can see you or I shoot the cop!"

They heard another deeper, older male voice say, "Negative! Don't—"

A sickening wet smack cut the voice short, as if the guy had slammed the cop in the mouth with the gun. Again the thief yelled, "You, girl! You come out now where I can freakin' see you! _Now,_ dammit!"

Dipper grabbed Wendy's hand and sent her a thought: — _He didn't notice me! He thinks it's just you!_

She squeezed and replied telepathically: _Maybe we can surprise the dude. I gotta stand up._

— _No! They shot the other policeman! Can't take the chance!_

The guy yelled once more: "The cop's gonna get it, girl! I got nothin' to lose!" His voice sounded high-pitched and edgy, and it had a flat echoy quality, the way voices do in empty rooms.

"Don't shoot him!" Wendy called back. "You and your guys are in too much trouble already! Just take your Chevy and go! All I want's my car back!" She sent Dipper another thought: _Gotta do it, Dip. Can't let him kill the guy._

Dipper balled his free hand into a tight fist. Where was the ambulance? Where were the cops? They should be there. They'd had time!

Now they guy's shouting took on a crazy, hysterical edge: "You just shut up! Shut up that freakin' mouth! Get out here where I can see you!"

Wendy pretended to be terrified herself, her voice ragged as she screamed, "I'm not armed, man! Don't shoot me!"

The car thief cursed again, repetitively. "Last chance, or I shoot the cop!"

Wendy squeezed Dipper's hand. _I'm layin' the other gun right here._ _Wish me luck, Dip! Anything bad happens, I love you!_

Wendy had shed her trapper's hat. She stood up, her hands clasped on top of her head. The tomahawk axe hung suspended from the belt at her back, a little crooked—the guy might be able to spot the end of the handle if he looked closely.

"Who the hell _are_ you?" the guy asked. Dipper, cautiously peeking out, could see him now over across the hood of the Dart, at least from the mid-chest up, a guy about Robbie Valentino's height, not young, not old, maybe early thirties. He had a high forehead—badly receding black hair, messy and spiky, what there was of it—and an ugly brawler's face, broken nose, scars on cheek and forehead, stark and pale in the cold light of six LED lanterns.

He gestured with the gun, held in hands that Dipper at first thought were black-gloved, but then he realized they wore ingrained layers of grease. "Get over here. Walk slow! I asked you who you were, bitch!"

"Name's LaMark! That's my car!" Wendy said without taking her hands off her head, but nodding toward the Green Machine.

The guy took a couple of steps. Now Dipper could see him from desert-boot-shod feet to the top of his head, a wiry figure wearing ripped, faded jeans and a badly oil-stained white tee-shirt. He held the gun steady, but asked in a surprised tone, "The classic Dart? You rich, bitch? Who restored it for you?"

"Me," she said, taking slow steps forward. "I did it all myself. Nobody helped me."

"Don't bullshit me!" the guy roared, a treble, scared sound, like the screech of a cornered hyena. "Anybody could do that, they'd sell the car for thirty or forty thousand to a collector! Ain't no girl could do that!"

"I did it, though. This slow enough?" Wendy's progress was like a deadly dance, one baby step, pause, another, pause again.

"Keep comin'. How'd they find us?"

"I got a tracker in the car," Wendy lied.

"Bull _shit!_ Ain't one on the damn car! We scanned it! Where are Clete and Roy and Jesse?"

"Knocked 'em all out," Wendy said. "You guys killed a cop. Found his body outside!"

Dipper heard, but couldn't see, the second policeman moaning somewhere in the barn. _He must be lying on the floor back toward the rear of the Dart. And now he thinks his partner's dead!_

The guy came right up to Wendy, who pivoted just enough to hide the axe hanging on her back. He gestured with a sideways twitch of his gun toward the Dart. "You had a LoJack on the car, where is it?"

"Not a LoJack," Wendy said. "A StealthTrace."

The man spat at her. "Don't feed me no lies! Ain't no such thing!"

"Yeah, dude, there is! Uses special high-burst frequencies, you can't even trace it if the engine's not runnin'. It showed us exactly which route you guys drove and where the car engine was last switched off. Hey, how'd you think I led the cops here? They just made me get outa their cruiser back a ways before they drove ahead to the barn. I heard the shots and ran up to check it out."

"And you knocked out my brother and the two other guys!" the thief snarled. His hands shook with fury or fear, and it looked as though he was about to pistol-whip Wendy. Dipper tensed.

"Snuck up and cold-cocked 'em, knocked 'em out one at a time," Wendy said.

"Like hell!"

"For real. I had combat training, man. I served in Afghanistan for a year," Wendy lied—convincingly. "Sixth Marines, corporal Mandy LaMark, LVS Mechanic."

"Shit, you were in the service? A freakin' _Marine_? Damn it! You and me are leavin' in your car, girl. First though, show me where the damn tracker is so I can disable the freakin' thing!"

"Gotta pop the hood."

"Do it!"

Wendy opened the driver's door, leaned in, grabbed the T-shaped hood release handle and tugged. The good clunked as it popped open three inches, then stopped, caught by the front hood latch. "OK," she said. "Raise it up."

The guy bent to reach in and move the latch release—and as soon as his hands were occupied, Wendy dashed to the front, drawing her axe, rushing him.

Dipper jumped up, running forward. He saw Wendy struggling face to face with the guy—heard an explosion, and Wendy fell backward—Dipper had the other thief's gun up now—he yelled, "Drop it or you're dead!"

He fired a shot without intending to, scaring the hell out of him. The slug missed the guy's right ear by maybe an inch, punched a fist-sized hole in the barn wall behind him, and the thief flinched, hesitating..

Dipper stopped not ten feet away. Amateur or not, there was no way he could miss at that distance. Wendy lay face-down and terribly still on the floor between them. "Warning shot!" Dipper roared, feeling his face hot with flooding rage. "Next one goes through you! Drop it _now_!"

The trembling thief dropped his automatic and put his hands on top of his head.

"Wendy?" Dipper called. "Are you OK?"

She didn't answer, and it took everything he had not to fire the pistol again. The guy was unarmed now. And he couldn't miss. He couldn't.

Something inside him said, _Hang on, kid! Not as bad as you think!_

And then the sirens wailed.

Just outside.

And just too late.


	12. Chapter 12

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 11-12, 2016)**

* * *

 **12: When They Come for You**

To Dipper's relief, Wendy pushed herself up from the floor. "I better go meet 'em," she said, slapping dirt from her shirt and jeans.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not shot. Kinda got the wind knocked out of me."

"I'm bleedin', man!" the thief screeched.

Wendy gave him a withering glance. "You'll live, tiger. Keep him covered, Dipper. Make him turn around and face away from you."

"You heard her," Dipper said. "Face the wall. Keep your hands on your head."

As the guy did, Dipper saw bright red splotches of blood on his shirt—not many, not large, and scattered—and saw a minor trickle of blood on his right wrist, too. None of it looked serious. "I'm shot, man!" the guy yelled at the wall.

"No, you're not."

Wendy had stooped to retrieve the guy's dropped gun and the axe. She went up front and dropped them inside the door, put her hands on her head, and stepped outside. The sirens had slowed, but now they swelled again, coming right up to the barn, and Dipper caught the flash of red and blue lights.

"Come on, bro," the thief begged. "Give me a break. Let me run for it at least."

"No way."

Dipper heard brakes and a chatter of police radio, and then voices. Wendy yelled, "Dipper! They're standin' in the doorway, got you and him covered. Put down the gun and step away and keep your hands where they can see 'em!"

Dipper did as she instructed, taking three steps back before putting the gun on the floor, then backed a little more and put his hands atop his head. He stood that way just in front of the Dart. Two cops in sheriff's department uniforms, weapons drawn, came into the lantern light. "He's the thief!" the guy yelled. "Arrest him!"

"He's lying!" Wendy yelled back. "That's my Dart they stole there. Back behind it you'll find a cop all tied up!"

One of the policemen had both Dipper and the car thief go brace the wall. The other cop went back into the darkness at the rear of the barn and yelled, "It's Lewis! I'm cutting him loose."

In seconds, that cop and the one Dipper had not seen—Lewis, presumably—came back into the light. Lewis, a paunchy gray-haired man of fifty, walked slightly stooped forward and held a hand to his mouth, blood leaking through his fingers. But he spat a gout of it out and said in a mushy voice, "That craphead on the right's the bad guy, Brennon. He's the one who pistol-whipped me. The kid next to him probably saved my life. You have to find the sheriff!"

"Got two more in the trunk of the Impala outside," Dipper said. "They were unconscious, but they might have come around, so be careful. Another one's in the old house, chained to a metal pipe."

Brennon, who seemed to be in charge, asked, "Who took them?"

"We did, dudes!" Wendy said. No one covered her—which, if she had been one of the baddies, would have been a fatal tactical mistake—and she said, "Me an' Dip, my fiancé. There's another wounded cop on the ground over past the drive."

"We got backup coming," Brennon said. "Davies, you go call for another ambulance. Then go see if the hurt cop's Sheriff Oleandar. Make that two more ambulances. Looks like we're gonna need a minimum of three. You kids hurt?"

"Wendy got shot," Dipper said.

"What!"

"I did not shoot her!" the thief said. "She stole my gun—"

"Shut up! Miss, where are you hit?"

"He got me in the axe," Wendy said. "From, like, five inches away! The slug hit the axe head and shattered. He's got nicks from the shrapnel, but I'm OK."

"You two kids go out and sit in the back of the cruiser until help gets here. I'm gonna read this citizen his rights."

So—they went out and sat in the back of the cop car. "What a mess," Dipper muttered. "We might be charged for assault or something."

Davies came back, supporting another cop, who was limping badly and clutching his gut. When he came into the light, Dripper saw the man's lips were bloody. "Wait a minute," the wounded man said hoarsely—his voice showed he was the cop they had first found—"I want to have a word."

A trim, white-haired man probably about sixty, he leaned in the open door of the cop cruiser, his breathing labored. "You kids all right?"

Wendy said, "Yeah—you're hurtin' bad, though."

"Broken ribs, I think maybe a punctured lung. Listen, you remember when I swore you in as deputies?"

"I—what?" Dipper said. "You—"

"Oh, yeah, we remember that," Wendy said hastily overriding Dipper and nudging him silent. "Hope we helped."

The bleeding cop winked. "You done good, deputies. My name's Oleandar, by the way. Frank Oleandar, Sheriff of Nutting County. Davies, you and Bren take care of those perps and when the reinforcements come, get somebody to find my sidearm. I dropped it somewhere over there when the bastard shot me. He would've hunted me down and killed me, wasn't for my posse here. I gotta sit down or pass out."

He couldn't manage the step up into the car, so he sat on the ground outside the barn, leaning back against a rear tire. In a few minutes, another cop car jounced into view and as soon as the deputies got out, one yelled, "Whose car's blocking the drive? Gotta move it for the ambulances!"

"That's mine," Dipper said. "Officer Brennon, may I move it?"

Brennon rose from where he had been hunkering next to the wounded sheriff. "Ride along with him, Cleark. No offense son, but this is a confusing crime scene."

"That's OK," Dipper said.

"Gonna need the keys," Wendy said, tossing them to Dipper, who swipe-caught them.

Cleark said, "Hustle, kid, they were right behind us."

They jogged down the dark ruts of driveway, Dipper slipped into the driver's seat of Helen Wheels and the policeman took the front passenger seat, and they rumbled down toward the barn. Sirens and lights faded in from behind them, coming on fast. Cleark said, "Better park her beside the barn. Who's the redhead?"

"My fiancée," Dipper said. "It was her car the guys stole."

"I'd say they made a big freakin' mistake."

"You'd be right," Dipper told him.

* * *

The first ambulance took the wounded sheriff and the battered Lewis. A second and third took the bad guys, three of them still woozy and nauseated, all of them cuffed, with a cop in each ambulance to ride along and guard them. "How 'bout my Dart?" Wendy asked.

Brennon, who had been left in charge of the scene, said, "Sorry, it's evidence. Forensics will go over it, we'll ferry it over to the Portland impound lot, and you'll get it back late tomorrow if you're lucky. More likely Wednesday or Thursday."

Wendy groaned. "Can I do a walk-around? I put years of work into that car. Did everything with my own hands."

That impressed Brennon, who accompanied her. As they came back from the barn, Dipper heard Wendy going into detail about the rebuild she'd done on an engine. When they reached the cruiser—Dipper was no longer sitting, but stood leaning against it, bone-weary—Brennon said to him, "Son, I want to shake your hand."

Dipper shook hands with him and asked, "Why?"

"Because you're gonna marry the most badass girl I ever met," Brennon said. "OK, Forensics will be here and take over the scene in about five minutes. I'll get you two back to headquarters and we'll take your evidence. It's gonna be a long night."

* * *

On the ride back, again in the rear seat of a police cruiser—Davies took Dipper's keys and said he'd drive the Carino in—Dipper and Wendy held hands and conversed silently. _–Is your car OK?_

 _Yeah, nothin' big. They ripped loose some wires to hot-wire it, and they took out the entertainment box I put in to replace the dead radio, but it's layin' on the front seat. They took off my tag and put one on from California, probably stolen, but I saw my plate behind it on the floor and Brennon made a note to get it back to me. Unless they hit something and caused undercarriage damage, I think it's all right._

– _When you went down, I was so scared._

 _Yeah, I thought for a second I was gut-shot! But I was holding the axe flat against my solar plexus, and the slug hit the other side. I just now looked at the axe. Little crater there, man! But I think the jerk got hit with shattered pieces of the slug. Brennon says it was a .380, so not that big a cartridge. Like I said, though, it smacked the axe head sideways against me and knocked the wind out of me, and I've probably got a bruise right below my sternum, but once I was down, I thought it was better to stay down._

– _I might have shot the guy. I almost did—pulled the trigger without meaning to, barely missed his head._

 _I knew you had it under control, man. I trusted you, Dip._

And for Dipper, that moment made everything worth it.

* * *

The rest of the night was long, draggy, and dreary. Wendy and Dipper went to separate interrogation rooms. They told their stories. They answered questions. They went over things again. Answered more questions. They got mildly scolded: "You should leave law enforcement to the professionals!" And immediately commended: "I never said this, but good job, anyhow."

By eight AM on Tuesday, they both felt numb and exhausted. Brennon, sporting a ten o'clock shadow—twice as bristly as a five o'clock one, as Mabel would have said—had them both come into the sheriff's office, where a name plate on the desk said "Franklyn Oleandar."

"OK, kids," he said. "The good news: two of the four guys already copped to the crimes—not just stealing your car, but half a dozen others in and around Portland—and ratted out the other two."

"What's that mean?" Dipper asked.

"For you, first of all it means you two are pretty much off the hook. The guy in the barn, Dale Kregar, is the ringleader. He and his brother Roy are terrified of us letting Texas extradite them. Texas has a laundry list of armed-robbery charges against them, in the course of one of which a law officer died in a pursuit when his car flipped."

"Oh, man," Wendy said.

"Yeah, and Texas is still a death-penalty state. We got the other two flat-heads a public defender, and she tells us they'll cop to grand theft auto, but we also nailed 'em all because over in Wallowa County they jacked a car at gunpoint, and the vic has ID'd the Kregars and Cletus from photos. That adds armed robbery. On top of that we can stack resisting arrest and assaulting two police officers. In other words, they're all four going away for a long time."

"Are the sheriff and the other man, Lewis, OK?" Dipper asked.

"Sheriff Oleandar has five broken ribs. Lung wasn't punctured, but bruised bad enough to bleed a little. Lewis lost some teeth and has to have some oral surgery, but they'll both recover. I know they'd want me to thank you two."

"When can I get my car back?" Wendy asked.

Brennon held up his hand for silence. "Let me finish, Miss Corduroy. Now, as I said, you two are off the hook for assault in, we'll say, assisting the police in their investigation when you conked those guys—by the way, what did you use on the three guys you knocked out?"

"Little toy camping hatchet," Wendy said. "But I was careful to use the hammer side, not the blade side."

"Camping hatchet," Brennon said. "I don't even want to know where you got it. Anyway, Sheriff Oleandar says he deputized you two, and we're not going to look too closely into that, either, because your driver's licenses indicate you're a little young to be deputies, but nobody wrote anything down, so we forgot to check your licenses, meaning you were operating under the assumption that it was all legit. The perps want to make any noise about that, we've got a great big bag of additional charges we can bring up to change their minds. And three of them had guns, so you were acting with reasonable force, far as we're concerned. No charges are gonna be made against you."

"We're not usually violent," Dipper said.

"I kind of figured that."

"Can you guys, like, take all the credit for the arrest?" Wendy asked. "My dad might come looking for the jerks who mistreated me and Dip. Believe me, you don't want that. So—?"

"We won't release your names to the press. Now, the Dodge Dart—you're going to have to file a theft-and-recovery report in Portland. They'll take their own time with their forensics crew in case we missed anything, which we didn't. I'm urging them to expedite things, but it'll be at least tomorrow, maybe even as late as Thursday, before you can have the Dart back. You did a real impressive restoration job, by the way."

"Thank you," Wendy said.

"You'll owe the city an impound fee of twenty bucks a day for as long as they keep it."

"What?" Dipper asked, outraged.

"Sorry, Mr. Pines, them's the rules." Brennon consulted a yellow note pad. "Now, Miss Corduroy, this bit about you serving in Afghanistan—"

Wendy laughed. "That was just a bluff. I noticed that the guy had a tat of an anchor and 'Semper Fi' on the inside of his arm, so I lied. Thought maybe one former Marine wouldn't hurt another or something, you know."

Brennon tossed the pad aside. "Yeah, well, it wouldn't have done any good—Dale Kregar was barely out of boot camp before he pulled a b.c.d.* You could say he got his ink prematurely. Anyhow, thank you for your help, and let me just say, if you ever try assisting us again in this jurisdiction, I'll personally throw your asses in jail so fast it'll make your head spin. You can drive the Carino back to Portland. Davies left it out back, and the keys are at the desk, just ask for them. Where did you first report the theft?"

Dipper gave him the address of the police station, and Brennon nodded. "That's what I figured. I'll give them a call and see if they'll get on the stick to cut you loose. You kids go get some rest, and I'll tell them you'll report to the station at—what, three PM?"

"Make it four, please," Wendy said.

"Four. Then take off. I'll be in touch if we need you for anything else."

* * *

Wendy and Dipper stopped for a hasty breakfast and repeated doses of medicinal coffee, and Dipper drove them back to Portland. At the motel, he arranged for them to keep the rooms another night. He called Mabel—"It's crazy here, Brobro! Wait until you hear how I got us some help!"—to tell her they'd be at least another day and that they had recovered the car. She had a flood of questions, but he first asked her to tell everyone they were OK, then promised, "I'll tell you all about it as soon as I see you."

He and Wendy were in his motel room. Wendy had stretched out face-down on the bed, on top of the covers, and seemed sound asleep, fully clothed except for her boots. Dipper hung the DO NOT DISTURB request on the doorknob and opened the connecting door.

"Uh-uh," Wendy murmured very softly. "You stay with me."

So he closed the door again and crawled onto the bed—too narrow for both of them, really—and she lay on her side, face to face, and he hugged her and fell asleep in her arms, knowing that his phone alarm would wake them up in just three hours for their trip to the police station for the rest of the rigmarole. He knew it wouldn't be pleasant, but then—

They'd take care of it.

Together.

* * *

*b.c.d. means "bad conduct discharge." It's what you get for (for instance) being dumb enough to steal a staff sergeant's Jeep and try to sell it to an undercover cop in a dive bar in Port Royal, South Carolina.


	13. Chapter 13

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 12, 2016)**

* * *

 **13: Meanwhile, Back at the Shack**

Five of the Gnomes showed up at the Mystery Shack on Tuesday morning around seven. Teek's eyes glazed over a little. "Uh, are they gonna wear _that_?" he asked Mabel.

"Of course they are!" Mabel said. "How else are five Gnomes gonna pass as a human?"

"Is that what they're doing?" her boyfriend asked. For some reason, Mabel had never shown him photos of her very first crush. Well, the first one she'd met in Gravity Falls, anyway.

The Gnomes were obviously out of practice in human guise—after all, more than four years had passed since the five of them had posed as Norman, Mabel's first go-out-and-do-things-with boyfriend. And Mabel had insisted on a change of costume, so instead of the rotting old hoodie they had dragged out of the dump to begin with, all those years before, they now wore a maroon Piedmont High hoodie—Dipper probably wouldn't mind very much—and some loose gray sweat pants. She'd tried tight jeans, but you could see the outlines of Jason and Shmebulock, right and left leg, respectively, too clearly. Nobody's knees were shaped like Gnome noses, after all.

"OK," Mabel said, clapping her hands for their attention. "The good news is you don't gotta move around. All you have to do is sit on the stool and ring up the purchases. Uh—the bad news is, somebody's gotta be the butt you sit on."

"Mabel," Teek said.

"Now, you guys admittedly don't have a lot of skill at numbers."

"This is true," Jeff, the head Gnome—literally!—agreed.

"Mabel—" Teek said.

"However," Mabel told Jeff, "the _really_ good thing is that with the register, you don't _have_ to have skill at numbers. Look, you punch these buttons—I'm gonna show you how, don't worry—and you make change. You can just scan the price tags, like this, and then the machine shows you how much the items cost. Most of the time, the customer will just have to swipe a credit card, and the register does the rest. Sometimes, they'll hand you cash, and when you ring in the money, the register even tells you how much change you need to return! All you have to do is bag the customer's purchase, put the receipt in the bag, and—the hard part—count out the change. But to do it, you really only need to count up to ten."

"Oh, we can do that!" Jeff said.

"Mabel," Teek repeated.

"Then you have to learn the value of the different money bills and coins, but some of you know that already. I know you do, Jeff, 'cause you play cards with Grunkle Stan and sometimes you go shopping and stuff."

"Whoa, whoa. The card-playing is only for play money," Jeff said. "Nobody in town accepts Stanbucks any more."

"Mabel!"

Mabel was nothing if not persistent. "Well, if you can understand Stanbucks—what is it, Teek?"

"Nobody has to be a butt," Teek said. "And the Gnomes don't need to wear a disguise."

Mabel gave him a pop-eyed look of frustrated astonishment. "Well, of _course_ they do! How will tourists think they're ordinary people unless they're disguised?"

"People in Gravity Falls know about Gnomes now!" Teek reminded her. "And the Gnomes even perform out on the Mystery Trail for visitors. Tourists see them all the time and think they're a tribe of former circus performers. You've been on the mystery tours, you know this—people who see them now just don't freak out!"

"Oh," Mabel said, giving herself a light blow to the forehead. "Doy! I'm stuck in the past."

"If I may make a suggestion?" Gideon said, dapper in blue polo shirt and black jeans. He had come in but found himself reluctant to play the Wolf Boy. That now hit a little too close to home, since he'd had a bout of lycanthropic flu some time back. "Let me take the register—I can tote up cash like nobody's business!—and let Jeff and his buddies do the dancin' instead of me."

" _Can_ you guys dance?" Mabel asked Jeff.

"Well," he said, gesturing toward their hoodie costume, "not like _this_. We'd have to get out of the human clothes. We keep bumping into things."

"Shmebulock!" his left leg said in apparent agreement.

Jeff nodded. "Right, like he says, we can do our traditional dances, if you just let us be ourselves. Hey Steve, you want to run and bring back five girls to dance with us? Get the best dancers—let me see, that's Gnlemba, Gnulinta, Gnachama, Gnommata, and, um—oh, yeah, Mary Sue!"

"Mary Sue?" Mabel asked.

"Her parents wanted her to go on to bigger things," Jeff explained. His right arm crawled out of the hoodie sleeve and plopped to the floor as Steve, who gasped for air and asked, "Midsummer costumes?"

"Good thinking, that would be great!" Jeff said. "Have the girls bring our Midsummer Dance clothes, too! Oh, and get the Gnazz Trio to come in with their instruments. Hey, wait, wait—Mabel, will we get the same amount of mushrooms for dancing as for working the register?"

"You bet!" Mabel said.

Gideon added, "If you make 'em laugh, they'll throw money at you guys. You can use it to buy even more mushrooms!"

"Hotcha!" Jeff said.

"I help?" Ulva asked. She was a genuine werewolf, who could even change form at will if she wanted to. She was literate, though not accustomed to retail work.

Gideon took her hand. "Darlin', I don't want you doin' what you can really do just for a show. I don't want you changin' to wolf form for people to take pictures of you. That would be degrading to you."

"I get a grade?" she asked, knitting her brows.

Gideon kissed her cheek. "No, darlin', I mean it's not something a pretty girl like you should do. But what you can do, you can help keep all the things on the shelves in order. Now, mind, if somebody picks up somethin' meaning to buy it, that's OK, let 'em do it. But human folks, 'specially kids, will handle things and put 'em down in the wrong place or the wrong way around sometimes. What you'd do is to go through the shop every now and then and straighten everything up they left behind 'em. You wanna do that?"

She nodded eagerly. As the Gleefuls had discovered, Ulva had an unerring instinct for where things went—and she enjoyed tidying up a lot, and she reveled in their praise. Mabel said, "That sounds good to me! But Ulva, don't let it bother you if they keep you real busy—there'll be a big crowd."

Ulva laughed. "Packs don't bother me!" she said proudly. She turned and looked around the gift shop, her eyes narrowed in concentration, her pert nose twitching. "Let me see. Is all in the right places now?"

"Yep, this is just how it should look," Mabel told her.

"I memorize." Ulva prowled through the gift shop, not only eyeballing, but also sniffing everything.

"She's a wonder at this," Gideon said. "She'll do you proud."

"'Sup?" asked a deep voice from the outside doorway.

Mabel spun around. A very bulky figure had just come into the shop. "Geetaur!" she squealed. "Thanks for helping out—my, how you have _grown_!"

The young Manotaur had obviously hit puberty, probably so hard that he'd left it somewhere sprawled and gasping on the ground. He now stood more than six feet tall, had stylishly tattooed curved horns, and, instead of the traditional Manotaur loincloth, he wore leather jeans—well, _sort_ of jeans, tight riveted trousers, obviously hand-stitched to follow the contours of his bovine legs—and a tight black tee shirt with a white symbol of a bull's head and the legend "A LOT OF BULL" in Gothic letters beneath that. The fabric stretched itself over a broad chest and a hard-looking six-pack of abs.

Geetaur beamed. "Hello, Mabel. Where's Dipper?" He and Dipper were blood bros, or the Manotaur equivalent—anyway, they had stuck their hands in the Pain Hole together at the same moment when Geetaur's initiation time came and the young Manotaur needed encouragement, there's a story behind that, never mind right now. And even before that, Dipper had defended Geetaur when others protested against the young Manotaur's participation in Gravity Falls' summer baseball tournament. Nowadays the two friends saw each other only rarely, but they were good buddies all the same.

"Oh, Dipper's off in another town with his girlfriend," Mabel said, running her eyes up and down and halfway back up the muscular young male. "Now, what can we have you do? I wonder what you'd be . . . _good_ at!"

Geetaur struck a pose, elbows out, forearms up, and bellowed, "The human leader will point me out on the _trail!_ I will show the people displays of _strength!_ Yes! And pose for photographs at twenty dollars a pop. Why are you swinging from my biceps?"

"Just testing," Mabel said, her feet clear off the ground. "You are gonna be _so_ popular with the ladies!"

"Mabel—" said Teek.

* * *

Though short-handed, they managed to run the Shack surprisingly well. The Shack was crowded, people oohed and aahed and bought, bought, bought, bought, bought. Gideon was no longer a fake psychic, but he'd lost none of his insidious charm and relentlessly, cheerfully, and successfully upsold customers.

A nice gray-haired lady would bring an item up and murmur that it was a gift for her little grandson. Gideon would beam. "Well, aren't you a sweet Nana! He's gonna love this li'l model of the Mystery Shack! Oh, did you see the li'l old tram and track kit? It's the Mystery Tour tram, just like the one you and your handsome husband rode on! And in the box there's some miniature scenery and li'l figures of Mr. Mystery and some visitors to go with it. But this that you're buyin' is nice, this is real nice. What? Yes, the tram _does_ run just like a li'l old electric train, hours of fun for kids! They're right over yonder, third shelf down from the top, and they're in the same scale as this model of the Shack. Why, yes, ma'am, I'd be proud to hold this here until you pick one up, and I'll let you back in line soon's you come back! You are truly a sweet Nana, and he's just gonna love you to pieces!"

Hard to believe, but it worked every single time. Gideon had an undisputable genius in some ways, even with no magic amulet hanging around his no longer pudgy neck.

A little later, as the day wore on toward noon, a fezzed and eyepatched Soos returned from a Mystery Trail tour and happily reported that Geetaur, who had taken up his station at the spot where normally the Gnomes put on a brief little show, was indeed a tremendous hit.

"I, like, tell the tourists, 'Dawgs, we are so lucky today! Over on the left I just spotted a rarely-seen Manotaur! He looks like he's exercising. Let's pause to admire this wonder of paranature!' And Geetaur picks up this, like, _massive_ oak log and does overhead push-presses with it! One-handed! And he even picks up two full-grown women at once, one sitting in each hand, for pictures!" He chuckled. "You oughta see them squirm, sittin' in those big cupped palms of his! They're just eatin' it up, dudes!"

Mabel had just discovered Geetaur's clothes, hanging on the staff room floor (same system that Dipper had used when he was twelve—it hangs where he tosses it). "Uh, Soos?" she asked, holding up the black tee shirt, "Is Geetaur uh, you know, _naked_?"

"Ow, no, Hambone!" Soos exclaimed, looking shocked. He chuckled anyway. "That would make the show, like, family unfriendly! No, he's wearing this traditional Manotaur thing, I guess it's like a loincloth dealy? Only it's more like a thong, I'd say. Small and _real_ tight, but it covers the subjects, if you know what I mean."

"Whoosh, it's hot in here," Mabel said, fanning herself with both hands. "All these crowds! This _body_ heat! I think I'll take a short break and go for a refreshing walk outside."

"Mabel—" said Teek.

* * *

The Gnomes were equally popular. They had cleared off the little raised stage where first Dipper and then, years later, Gideon had done the Wolf Boy act, and on it the Gnomes were dancing for the customers.

It's true that most of the tourists were convinced that the Gnomes were exceedingly cleverly constructed audio-animatronic figures, but they clapped and laughed and tossed money anyhow. The three-Gnome band had set up off the rear left corner of the stage—one Gnome played the tym-panics, a kind of horizontal drum kit fashioned from hollowed-out tree trunks, another the stambeck, an acoustic stringed instrument remarkable for the sheer volume it could produce per square inch of its size, and the third the tubercula, a piercingly loud brass horn shaped like a sweet potato and keyed somewhat like a trumpet.

Gnome music is hard to explain. It has rhythm—the beat did go on, lah dee dah dee dah—and notes, though some of these go beyond G and up as high as M-sharp, and Lord knows it has volume. The sound produced by the Gnazz Trio was somewhat of a mash-up of a classic minuet, death metal, ska, and Custer's last stand.

The five Gnome couples danced tirelessly and extremely athletically, and the customers clapped along and tossed enough change and even bills to keep them in mushrooms for months. As to the dance itself—well, we have to pause for a bit of history here. Some of this is necessarily speculation, but bear with it, please.

In the third century A.D. a minor Roman philosopher, Abies Molendus (Abies the Abrasive), studying at an isolated spot in Greater Gaul, recorded in his work _De Mysteria Canabia_ * various legends of the natives, including this one regarding a race of diminutive humanoids that may well have been ancestors of modern Gnomes:

* * *

 _Quod sub terra cuniculos habitant Gothi minutis terrarum. Absconditi fuerint in hieme, vere comisatum exaudiantur. Hoc dicitur quod est a strenuus receperint sol in parva ludere ludum dicitur, "Non sentio felix, punctus?"_

(The Goths say that small human-like beings inhabit burrows beneath their land. They are never seen in the cold months but appear in spring and summer. They welcome the sun with a strenuous game that the small creatures call "Do you Feel Fortunate, Punctus?")

* * *

Without further presenting the Latin original, which tends to be tedious and is frequently interrupted by Abies' complaints of the low pay philosophers command and observations that "omnia nocet" ("everything hurts"), the patient reader eventually learns that the little humanoids are burrowers; they are not exclusively subterranean, but do retreat into their burrows when the weather is inclement or people are hunting them for meat or revenge; they are quarrelsome, secretive, and mistrustful of people; and they fight "like twelve dogs and twelve furious cats stuffed together in a bag."**

The spring games sound more like free-for-all battles, the tiny people's way of getting rid of all the irritations and frustrations of living in close quarters for months with relatives they don't much like while getting rid of not a few of those relatives at the same time, apparently.

Anyway, the point is that nowadays the Gnomes, possibly descended from the creatures Abies described elsewhere as "insanus paulo simiae ludus" ("crazy little dirt-monkeys") have in Gravity Falls moved to the surface and live in trees rather than remaining in burrows year-round and have sweetened their natures to the extent of dancing rather than fighting, though to an observer the athletic Fortunatus midsummer dance is nearly indistinguishable from an Irish football riot: lots of swinging and tossing and struggling for partners, accompanied by high-spirited yips and playful cries of "I'll rip yer feckin' ears off!"

The tourists loved it. A happy Gnome dance has the same kind of morbid fascination as a ten-car pileup on the freeway in which you are not personally involved. And Gnome stamina is so great that one dance—not a day of dances punctuated by rests, but ONE dance that lasts all day—goes on for six hours straight, or until the last two survivors fight it out and one is finally pinned to the dance floor, whichever comes first.

That afternoon, Dipper called Mabel around five, but the Shack was still contending with not only the tourists, but also the Gnomes, and she told him she couldn't really hear and had no time to talk. Finally, though—finally!—by half-past six they had closed. Soos happily paid Geetaur in jerky (the Manotaurs' favorite medium of exchange) and had given a delighted Jeff a whole bushel of mushrooms. Mabel offered to walk Geetaur home, but he politely declined and strolled off into the forest, munching and flexing. She watched until he was gone, sighing deeply.

And then she called Dipper back. "How's it going, Brobro?"

"Finally finished everything up. We got Wendy's car back just a minute ago."

"Is it OK?" Mabel asked anxiously. "And does Helen Wheels miss me? Tell her I miss her!"

"Slow down," Dipper said. "Wendy's car needs a little work, but it's OK mechanically and runs fine, so she'll take care of it after we get home. Our Carino's fine, nothing wrong with it—"

"When are you guys coming home?"

Mabel heard Dipper grunt the way her mom sometimes did when conversing with her. He said, "Sis, if you'll just let me talk, I'll tell you. The police say it's OK for us to leave Portland, but we're both too exhausted for night driving, so we're thinking of staying over and getting some sleep until early tomorrow morning. We'll leave here around five, five-thirty, drive back separately, and I'll plan to get there by eight at the latest. Wendy will go home first for a shower and a change of clothes, and we can both work tomorrow."

"Aw," Mabel said. "If you guys are so tired, we can struggle through one more day without you."

"No, no, Wendy feels guilty for missing work and we'll report for duty. How'd it go today?"

"Well—the crowd wasn't as big as just after the Fourth, but there were still lots of tourists, and they had a great time and spent lots of money. We at least tied our best one-day take for the summer, and Soos is happy. Oh, and by the way, Geetaur says hello."

"Was he there?" Dipper asked, sounding pleased but surprised. Manotaurs were notoriously shy of most human contact, except for the very few who'd befriended humans. "He didn't let the tourists see him, did he?"

"Oh, they saw a lot of him," Mabel said, grinning. "A _whole_ lot of him!"

"Mabel!" said Teek.

* * *

* _Of the Mysterious Secrets of the Small Hut._ The title is evidently a reference to the temporary dwelling Abies established somewhere in Europe while he performed his studies.

* * *

** Literally, " _Sicut per unum duodecim lapides sacculi male canes feles, et quod multi furore_." One wonders if he personally experimented with live cats and dogs to derive this estimate. That could possibly explain his frequent repetition of "everything hurts."


	14. Chapter 14

**Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings**

 **(July 13, 2016)**

* * *

 **14: The Way Back Home**

 _Bonum est_ _experientia pro puero puerum cum talo caput. Prudentia usu melius, acuit ingenium, spoliare docet de victima quam._ _—Abies_ _Molendus,_ XLII: Demovere de meus gramina, bratos (ca. 222) _.*_

* * *

On Wednesday morning Dipper and Wendy rose early—they had again slept in the same bed, though once more, they had been far too tired even for a mental make-out session—and got back into the clothes they had worn the day before. The hotel lobby put out a daily spread of a rather stingy continental breakfast—coffee, cereals, and a limited variety of pastries—but ordinarily not until six-thirty.

The desk clerk had heard about the stolen car, and when they came in to check out, she sympathetically brewed them a pot of so-so coffee and let them pick from a basket of chilled pastries. They thanked her, warmed their Danishes in the toaster, and ate hurriedly.

"Oh, man!" Wendy said as she drained the last of her coffee. "You know what today is?"

"Wednesday?" Dipper asked. He woke up faster than Mabel, but he'd become a little coffee-dependent to get his thinking started.

"The thirteenth. Soos's birthday, man!" Wendy said.

"Oh, right! I have something for him," Dipper said. "Well, me and Mabel do, I mean. We got him a Bluetooth music player and earbuds so he can enjoy his terrible songs without bugging everybody else. Mabel's got it wrapped and everything."

"Wonder what I can give him," Wendy said. "Hey, I got it! He always pays me to lay in a big supply of firewood for the Shack. This year, I'll do it for free."

"Good idea," Dipper told her. "I'll have time when we get home to create a certificate for that on the computer. I'll print it out and you can sign it, and there you go! And when you cut the wood, I'll help."

"High five!" she said. After the celebratory slap, she said, "Hold my hand for a few seconds, Dip. I'm sending you some road smarts."

One great advantage of their touch telepathy was that one of them could instantly teach the other something—Dipper had learned more about driving from Wendy than from the driving instructor back home—and this time she sent him knowledge about the route to Gravity Falls, along with a few possible shortcuts in case they ran into unexpected traffic. "That'll come in handy," he told her.

"Then let's go, man."

They left a good tip for the clerk, Dipper made sure their bill was settled—they had kept both rooms, though they could have got by with only one, after all—and at five-ten, they set off for Gravity Falls in tandem, the more experienced Wendy leading the way and carefully obeying speed limits, probably for Dipper's peace of mind.

That morning, driving east had advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage was that the heavier traffic was coming toward Portland, not going away from it. It was easy for Dipper to keep the Green Machine in sight. The chief disadvantage was that they were soon driving toward the rising sun.

Fortunately, that wasn't as bad as it might have been. A little rain had fallen during the night, not much—the pavement was damp rather than wet—and clouds on their way to Mount Hood lingered for about an hour after the sun rose at 5:30, shielding their eyes from the blinding light. They passed through The Dalles before seven, turned south some way past that, and got to the Valley a little before eight in the morning.

Wendy had to pass the Shack on her way home, and she gave him a wave. Dipper parked Helen Wheels over on the far side of the lot, near Soos's pickup in the employee section, and before he got out with his bag of dirty clothes, Mabel rushed him and hugged him. "Yay! You brought her back in one piece, Dipper!"

Dipper began, "I think Wendy protected me more than the other way—"

Mabel punched his shoulder. "Don't be a dodo, Brobro! I meant you brought back Helen Wheels! Is she OK?"

"Yeah, of course," Dipper said. "I think we need to get somebody to look at the brakes, though. They're pulling a little to the right. And the tires probably need rotating and balancing—"

"You learned all that car stuff from Wendy!"

He nodded. "I sure did. So you can count on it being accurate. Let me shower and change and get a little something to eat, and I'll be ready to start the day."

They went in through the gift-shop door, and Dipper did a double-take. "What are those Gnomes doing?"

"Practicing their dance!" Mabel said. "They're subbing for the Wolf Boy. Oh, Gideon's coming in today to work the other register with you, and I'll help Teek in the kitchen. Ulva's gonna help Wendy keep the gift shop tidy—she's a wiz at making sure everything stays in order. Go on, get your stinky self into the shower and get ready!"

"Stinky?" Dipper asked. "Really?"

"Well, you got some boy-pong going on, probably your clothes. Hurry, hurry!"

Dipper rushed through a hot shower, then got dressed. He opened his laptop and took a few minutes to create a nice-looking half-page certificate: "In Honor of Soos's Birthday, I will supply the Shack with a great big load of prime firewood for the coming winter. Signed Wendy Corduroy, Lumberjack Girl." It had a colorful border of alternating pine and oak tree silhouettes and a watermark of an axe and saw, forming a central X like the crossbones of a pirate flag. Before printing, he went online and checked out the definition of "boy-pong," and got nothing, but then learned that by itself, "pong" meant "a fetid stench, as of unbearable body odor _." I wonder where Mabel picked up that particular term,_ he thought. Whatever, he was pretty well convinced that he hadn't really had a fetid stench, maybe just a little sweaty funk.

He sent the document to the printer downstairs—Soos, more tech-savvy than Grunkle Stan, had put everything on a local network—and then went down, picked it up, and folded it into an envelope.

He didn't have a lot of time, but he cooked some bacon in the microwave (not his favorite way of preparing it), cut some sourdough bread and a slice of sharp Cheddar, and improvised a bacon and cheese sandwich, toasting it beneath the oven broiler. Enough coffee remained for him to have a second cup, and he started another pot.

Wendy breezed in about a quarter to nine. He gave her the certificate, and as she signed and re-folded it, she said, "Perfect, dude! I told my dad we'd celebrate Soos's birthday after work, so I'll be a little late getting home. He growled like a bear and said he was gettin' used to it! He looked at my car with me and we both think that once I get the entertainment box back in I ought to do something to keep it from being stolen again."

But they didn't have time right then to discuss it. Soos entered, decked out as Mr. Mystery, and Gideon and Ulva came in ready to work—Gideon, now looking beefy rather than fat, was wearing a better-fitting powder-blue suit with a regular tie, Navy blue and gold striped, Oregon's state colors, in place of the string bolo, and next to him, Dipper felt underdressed in his red tee shirt and vest. But so what? That would only mean that Gideon would attract more of the customers, and that would ease Dipper's work load. _Good grief, I'm thinking like Grunkle Stan!_

Ulva really looked exotically attractive these days. Her short hair was a deep blonde, and now she wore shoes—well, sandals, but it was summer—and Gideon had bought her a Mystery Shack tee shirt, black with scarlet trim and a big scarlet question mark on the front. She wore it with knee-length red culottes. Dipper thought she looked elfin—but in a good way, not in a cold-hearted "stand aside, puny mortal" way.

Mabel told him that the Gnomes had traded out, and today's dance team was made up of younger Gnomes, "beardlings" (males whose whiskers had only come in the previous year) and "femlings" (girls who this year could do whatever it was that Gnomes did in place of dating). Jeff had come along to supervise, though, and the band was the same. Watching them rehearse, Dipper started to wonder if he and Wendy could stand hours of the music—"Straight Blanchin" might be a shade harder to endure, but not much.

Then they got busy. Tourist attendance at the Shack fluctuated constantly, but on the average, the weeks just prior to and just after July 3 were the pinnacle, with the run-up and actual day of Labor Day coming in a close second. At noon, Soos reported that by his count, they were getting about fifteen per cent fewer tourists than in the days around the Fourth, but still a lot more than the old place had seen back in the day when Dipper and Mabel had come up for their first summer.

And that meant so many tourists streamed through that Wendy and Dipper couldn't even find time to have lunch together. Like Mabel, Dipper found himself impressed by Gideon's salesmanship—he could probably give even Stan a run for his money in that department.

The last tourist bus pulled away around four in the afternoon, and then the day wound down to family groups, a bunch of Scouts in a minibus (what the heck were they trying for, Dipper wondered—their grifting badges?), and a few young-to middle-aged-to retired couples coming in to be awed by the Ballet des Gnomes ("I thought that up myself!" Mabel boasted) or to have their photos snapped with a beaming Jeff, a frowning stuffed (and fake) Sascrotch, the terrifying "Our Founder" bronze statue of Stanley Pines, or a looming Soos.

They all took a break at six, when the Shack officially closed. Everyone who had manned a register tallied up the day's income (very nice), turned it over to Soos, and then—more or less collapsed. Gideon and Ulva went out to sit at one of the picnic tables and share a soda. Mabel and Teek got the snack-bar kitchen in shape for the next day. Soos sat in his recliner and put his feet up. And Dipper and Wendy walked down to the bonfire clearing.

"Is your dad mad at us?" Dipper asked her as they settled onto the log.

She stretched her long legs out in front of her and leaned back. "Not so much. I think he's workin' on letting me go out on my own, man. I told him we rented separate motel rooms in Portland. I didn't say anything about not really using one of them, though. Oh, he says he's gonna pay you back—"

"No," Dipper said. "We wouldn't even have gone to Portland except for my wanting to do the ring shopping thing, and your car wouldn't have been stolen—seriously, just no."

"You tell him that, then," Wendy said.

"I will."

"Mm, you do have guts, man," Wendy said with a chuckle. "But let Dad find some graceful way out of wantin' to repay you. I mean, if you won't take his money—"

"I'll tell him I'd be happier if he put it in your college fund," Dipper said.

"That might do!"

They sat quietly together for five or ten minutes, breathing in the warm, balsam-scented summer air, listening to the woodpeckers hammering frantically, as though they knew a flood was coming and they were building a second Ark, and, in general, the teens just enjoyed the summer afternoon and unwound.

Wendy reached for his hand and sent him a thought: _Dipper, I've been mulling some things over. I think there's something you ought to know._

— _What?_

 _Well—I've kinda changed my mind._

— _Wait, what? Because of something I've done? Wendy_ —

 _Whoa! Whoa! Dipper, don't get all worked up. Just let me explain. Dude, I can feel how nervous you are! Don't be scared, man. It's not like I'm breaking up with you. But it does have something to do with you and me and our future._

— _Wendy, what is it?_

 _Well—I think I probably mentioned to you like a dozen times or so that my dream is to live in Portland._

— _I remember. What about it, Wen?_

 _Everything that happened sorta changed my mind. I guess I'm more a small-town girl than I thought I was. But after we marry and graduate from college and so on—would you mind if we lived in some little place?_

— _Like Gravity Falls?_

 _Yeah, that would be fine with me. But any small-town place, really, wherever life takes us. Only I think I wouldn't be happy in a big city, OK? Still, it's your call, man. If you really want to, I'll give it a try—_

He let go of her hand, pulled her close, and kissed her. "You don't even have to ask," he whispered to her. "Portland or Timbuktu or Gravity Falls or anywhere, Wendy. I'll go anywhere to be with you. Wherever you are—that will always be the place my heart calls home."

They kissed again, and she whispered instead of using telepathy: "My Big Dipper is getting all smooth. Thanks for understanding, Dip. I love you."

"Love you right back, Magic Girl. But whatever happens, wherever we travel—I'll always want you with me. Especially if there are scary guys with guns around."

"Deal," Wendy said, smiling. "Let's not let this little walk make us all hot and steamy, Dip! Not right now. You ready to go help Soos celebrate his birthday in his own quiet way?"

"Ready," Dipper said, standing up. As they walked hand in hand back toward the Shack, both were feeling, somehow, as though the future had just begun to glow a tiny bit brighter.

 _Bring it on, Dipper thought. Whatever's in store, we'll face it._

Sometimes even then he forgot that when they were touching, Wendy could hear his thoughts. He got one back from her:

 _Together, man. Yeah. Together._

* * *

*"An experience of the greater world is a good thing for young knuckleheads. It teaches them discretion, improves their wit, and instructs them in the art of fleecing a mark."—Abies the Abrasive, _Treatise 42:_ _Get off My Lawn, Brats._

* * *

 _The End_


End file.
